Our Story
Welcome! My name is Genevieve, I am a mother of six and the Co-founder of HSBG. After failing to homeschool my oldest when we moved to BG in 2016 and again during Covid I had pretty much given up on the idea. We moved into the coveted South Warren area and spent the next five years struggling with the needs of our oldest with severe ADHD. Covid hit and we sent four of our children masked including our Kindergarten and Preschooler. They experienced school for the first time in a way most people never have and never will. Even when things calmed down the structure loosened and it was clear the affects of a world pandemic were not just physical. All four of my school aged children were being bullied in some form or another, when it turned into a situation that required a police report after the school ignored us, I realized I had to make a big change.
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In February 2023, while recovering from Covid (one of the 20 illnesses the kids brought home that year) and preparing to be a full time student myself in March, I became a homeschooling parent over night. I signed up for an online program and started researching and ordering everything I could for my three elementary aged kiddos while adding in my 1 and 3 year old. It was clear very quickly that socializing was going to be a huge miss for my kids. They had only ever known the structure and environment of public school and the transition for my older child was extremely hard. At the same time I started to see the benefits it offered another child that I never could have seen and the public schools were missing. I sought out other secular homeschoolers who were his age and realized that in itself was a challenge. I found a few moms in the area who were looking to socialize their kids and tossed the 3-4 of us in a Facebook Group to communicate. I met the first mama at the park with her kids and it gave me so much hope, it also made me realize all of my feelings about my children's needs were validated.
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Shortly after this I started to reach out to more people and I was amazed by the response. The need was bigger than I realized in our area and not just for the kids, the adults were looking for a community too. I decided to book a public space and post it on Facebook, the night before I was up until 4am prepping bins and an activity for whoever might show up. With five kids in tow I hosted an event - by myself - for strangers (besides the mama I met once at the park) and it went surprisingly well! My kids felt hopeful for the first time and the mom guilt felt a little less.
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From pulling my kids from public school in February to hosting a full field day in May I knew I had something special. A group of parents joined together to form a committee and we planned for the year over the summer. Once we started in August it was clear a non-profit was necessary and then a co-op. Now a non-profit corp and a co-op in September 2023, we went from just a newbie homeschool family to a whole community in about 6 months. I can't wait to see where we go from here!
