Mom's House Celebrates 25 Years of Changing Lives

Of the many challenges single moms face, perhaps the most daunting is education. If you don't already have a degree, how do you get one?

While childcare subsidies are available to low income, single parents who work, it’s difficult for full-time students to log enough hours on the job to qualify. So a cycle begins: insufficient education limits employment opportunities, which depresses income, which leaves many single moms and dads without the necessary funds to get daycare for their kids so they can finish school.

Potential goes unrealized. Lives are blighted. 

Mom's House of Phoenixville looked at this problem and saw a solution. And a quarter of a century later, they're still implementing it—one mom at a time.

“We feel just because a young woman has had an unplanned pregnancy or child birth, their life doesn’t have to stop. They can still go to school, and that’s where we step in,” said the organization’s finance director, Wendy McKeon.

McKeon, who’s been involved with the program for four years, said Mom's House provides childcare free of charge to area single moms who go to school full-time. (Though they haven’t had any takers yet, they're willing to help dads too.)

Though their clients have ranged in age from 13 to 40-something, McKeon said what makes Mom's House special is its interest in what happens to single women after they give birth.

“I think its unique. There’s a lot of groups out there that say ‘Have your baby, have your baby, have your baby, have your baby.’ And they have the baby and where’s the support then?”

“It’s not a handout”

The organization is funded, McKeon said, entirely though private donations.

“We beg for money,” she laughed, adding that foundation grants and fund drives hosted by various community groups, including the boy scouts and the Kiwanis Club, help them make ends meet.

“We’re in a good position now financially, but It’s a struggle,” she admitted. 

And while the childcare services at Mom's House are free, the girls are expected to contribute, McKeon says. To begin with, each client has to commit to two hours of service each week.

“This could be cooking, cleaning, folding newsletters, whatever we happen to be doing,” she said.

The moms are also expected to help with the organization's two major, annual fundraisers; a 5K run and a wine tasting and dinner that’s coming up on November 9.

“It’s not like we’re just handing out something. They have responsibilities to the program too,” McKeon said.

Another of these responsibilities is attendance at monthly parenting seminars. A recent lecture was on domestic violence and cooking is up next.

New location, same goals

Over the summer, Mom's House moved from the Church Street facility that housed the program since its inception to First Presbyterian Church.

While McKeon admitted it was a “long, hot summer of packing” and said paying rent will take some getting used to (Mom's House operated out of Sacred Heart free of charge, though they were responsible for maintenance) the upside of the move is that the group will be able to almost double the number of children they can care for.

“We’re licensed for 22 kids now and before we could only take twelve,” said McKeon. She added that the daycare still has seven open spots.

Success stories

Nancy Eisenhardt has been bringing her son Matthew, 5, to Mom's House for over three years. For Eisenhardt, who said she became pregnant with her son her senior year at Perkiomen Valley High School and graduated well into her third trimester, the program has been a rock.

“They do so much here. Whatever you need, they’ll help with,” she said, adding that, in addition to daycare, the group arranged for her to use a laptop when her computer broke and helped her pay for textbooks.

And her son, she says, loves it.

“All summer long he asks when school’s going to start back up,” she laughed.

And, despite her complicated start to adulthood, things have been going well for Eisenhardt too: after a few changes of major, she's collected an associate's degree from Montgomery County Community College and is scheduled to graduate from West Chester University in May of 2014 with a degree in Criminal Justice.

"I'm very excited," she said.

She sounds it.