By Laura McAlister
Journal Editor
Stay-at-home moms need networking, too. Thanks a local club, they’ve got it in the Over the Mountain area.
The Over the Mountain MOMS Club is a local chapter of the national MOMS Club. It offers moms and their little ones a chance to meet others in the area through meetings, play dates and more.
“We basically try to have something planned almost every day of the week,” said Heather Champagne, president of the Over the Mountain club. “For us, we get to come together with other adults, and then the kids get to play together. A little friendship really goes a long ways.”
The club has about 45 members from the Mountain Brook, Homewood, Forest Park and Vestavia Hills areas. It’s an affiliate of the national MOMS Club formed in 1983 with the goal of bringing stay-at-home moms and their children together in a safe and fun environment.
Heather said that like herself, many of the members of the OTM club are not from the area, so it has really helped stay-at-home moms develop friendships.
“I’m from Ohio and don’t have family nearby,” she said. “These are a great group of women. Just the other day I needed a couple hours, so I called one of them and asked if my daughter could come over there and play.”
Heather has two girls ages 7 and 4. She said most of the mothers in the club have young children. They have groups for cradles and crawlers, infants and then toddlers. There are also school-age children.
In addition to bringing together mommies with their children, the group also makes time for some grown-up fun.
About once a month, the group has a mommies’ night out or mommies’ night in. It also has monthly meetings at Edgewood Presbyterian Church.
“We have speakers at those,” Heather said. “We’ve had anything from someone coming to talk about how to get Crayon off the wall to financial planning.”
The cost to join the MOMS Club is $20 a year. Dues pay for refreshments, postage, supplies and other needs.
Heather said members are always looking for unique activities to bring moms together.
Sometimes they’ll meet at a member’s home with kids in tow for a crockpot play group. Each member brings one ingredient, and together they assemble crockpot meals.
“It’s really great because everybody leaves with a meal,” Heather said. “Right now, we’re planning a drive-in movie night where the kids can decorate a box for their car, and we’ll all watch a movie in it outside.
“We’re always trying to think of creative things to do together.”
What really makes the club work, Heather said, is flexibility.
“We have to be flexible,” Heather said. “Kids get sick. We try to make everything fluid because that’s just the way ‘mommy-hood’ is.”
For more information about the Over the Mountain MOMS Club, email [email protected].