asheville mamas
by lisa horak

Hey all you busy multi-tasking women! Ever try to track down a vegan candy bar or find an herbal remedy for your baby’s all-night-long cough? Well fear not! Now you can log onto ashevillemamas.com, a new Internet site promoting environmentally friendly and family-friendly products.

And the best part is that nearly everything on the site is made by moms who have home-based businesses right here in Asheville. But even if you’re not a mama or you don’t live anywhere near Asheville, have no worries. Whether you’re in North Carolina or North Dakota you can find healthy alternatives to everything from diaper rash cream to tonight’s dinner menu.

The story of the Asheville Mamas really began more than two years ago when a bunch of smart and talented women met one another through an Asheville Mamas on-line discussion group. The group was started by Jill Frink-Thompson, a practicing clinical herbalist in West Asheville and founder of Mama Groove Herbs, which makes organic salves and balms from herbs grown in her own back yard. Her top selling product, Happy Hiney Herbal Ointment for Diaper Rash, was near and dear to her new on-line friends, many of whom were new mothers.

They initially e-mailed each other about issues relating to attachment parenting, the philosophy of bonding with babies through long-term breastfeeding, sharing a family bed, and keeping a baby as close as possible, like in a sling. It wasn’t long before other topics arose. Not surprisingly, many of the women were struggling with the perennial question of how to balance motherhood and earn money for their households. They discovered that many among them already had started home-based businesses that were in tune with their natural, healthy way of living.

The women began networking and their discussion group blossomed into a virtual social group as well as an information clearinghouse. They posted information on everything from fun kid-friendly events in town to childhood illnesses, from home schooling to potty training. When someone wrote in needing advice, others quickly responded with suggestions based on their own experiences.

“It is a great group of women,” says Jill. “If you have a question about anything, you can post it and get back a bunch of responses. There are so many amazing people with experience and knowledge to share. And no one says ‘this is the right way to do something.’ Everyone is supportive and helpful and generous. Right now there are more than 75 people in the group. So you never know who will respond to your question, but you know you’re going to get a lot of good information.”

Mado Hesselink, who designed the Asheville Mamas web site, says, “It’s amazing to be part of this on-line community. There is an incredible number of talented women offering advice—midwives, herbalists, massage therapists, homeopaths…you get a lot of different perspectives.”

With such useful information flowing through cyberspace, the mamas didn’t want it all to disappear with the click of a delete button. They decided to archive the information generated by the group so that newcomers and old-timers alike could search by topic for advice on a particular matter. In addition, one of the mamas, Sabrina Marie, had the wonderful idea to create the Asheville Mamas web site.

“A lot of us were working on creating web sites for our own businesses, and we realized that if we pooled our resources we could developed one overarching site and link our individual sites together. That way we could do more, capture more information, and have more to offer to people,” says Jill.

“The idea for the web site started as a way to promote our own businesses,” says Julie Schantz, who with her husband owns Tree Huggin Treats, a line of vegan and organic candy bars, energy bars, and fudge. Julie moved to Asheville with her family just a year and a half ago to pursue their dream of owning their own candy business. “We were unsatisfied with what was available to us so we started making our own delicious candy bars. Less than two years later, because of the tremendous local support we received, we are now being sold all over the country. We hope the web site will reach new people and become a complete resource for parents in Asheville and beyond”.

As for the web site itself, there are main six categories: Cooking and Natural Foods, Handmade Goods, Health and Wellness, Herbs and Natural Remedies, Family and Parenting, and Nature and Environment. In addition, there is also a list of family-friendly events in Western North Carolina, articles and resources on healthful living, and pictures and bios of the mamas (and many of their babes).

Yes, women in Asheville are making truly excellent products. There are handmade children’s clothes, cloth diaper covers, and baby slings. There are vegetable-based soaps, lotions, and lip balm. There’s handmade paper and stationary and handcrafted toys and dolls. There are women teaching homeopathy, shiatsu, yoga and kindermusik classes. There are midwives and doulas and lactation consultants.

“I see this web site as a portal to healthful living,” says Sabrina Marie, author of Open Sesame Cooking: A Vegetarian Sampler, which features her original poetry along with her vegetarian recipes. Her business Open Sesame Cooking teaches people to cook healthy meals. Sabrina posts healthy recipes and articles on nutrition on the Asheville Mamas web site as well as on her own site.

In addition to the official launch of the web site, the original Asheville Mamas discussion group continues to flourish and grow. These remarkable women have found one another through the wonders of technology. Today they are sharing their knowledge, products, and services with others in the hope of promoting a happy and healthy lifestyle.

Check out the Asheville Mamas web site at ashevillemamas.com. To join the Asheville Mamas discussion group, please email enigmama@aol.com.

Lisa Horak lives in Asheville with her husband and two daughters.