MamaFest 2014!

Make sure to RSVP via Facebook for all the up-to-the-minute details!

NEW this year! First Missouri screening of Things We Don’t Talk About: Women’s Stories from the Red Tent. (6-8:00 p.m. screening, other activities ongoing from 4-8:00)

What is MamaFest?

At our very first official meeting, we all agreed that community outreach was a goal for Rolla Birth Network. After all, how can we help women if they don’t know we exist? Several ideas were tossed around, but we kept coming back to a celebration event. What better way to introduce ourselves and get our message out than to have a party! And so, MamaFest was born.

We envisioned a fun, relaxing time where women could gather to rejuvenate from everyday life. Participants got to enjoy a quick chair massage while sipping some iced tea, or visited the red tent area to share their child’s birth story and created birth art. Ever wondered what a doula does or which baby carrier to buy? We had you covered!

Our first annual event, MamaFest 2012, was a tremendous success and we enjoyed another successful event in 2013. We hope to do even better this year, so don’t miss out! We’re adding more vendors every day. If you have a mama-oriented business, please feel free to contact us for vendor information.

Here are a few of the offerings we have so far:

*Chair Massage *Makeup tips and application *Photography

*Wine tasting *Doula tips and tricks *Babywearing

*Door Prizes *Pregnancy Resources *Birth Art

*Aromatherapy *Breastfeeding information *Beer Tasting

Many thanks to all our sponsors, who have graciously donated time, services and more to help us have a successful event:

Tara Day Spa Public House Brewery

Summer Birth Services Wenwood Farms Winery

Bella Rouge Boutique Birthright of Rolla

La Leche League of Rolla Dr. Annise Neidrich

Friends of Missouri Midwives Vessell’s Fitness Complex

Brigid’s Grove Jamberry Nails

Little Mother Photography ShowME Wellness

Thirty-One Gifts Tri-Rivers Family Planning

Passion Parties Origami Owl

MOPS-Rolla Pulaski County Health Center

Rolla Area Citizens for Women

The Vagina Monologues!

Rolla Birth Network is pleased to be one of the co-sponsors of the upcoming production of The Vagina Monlogues, Eve Ensler’s classic feminist empowerment play.

The local production of The Vagina Monologues will benefit the Russell House, a shelter for battered women and their children. The event is specifically planned as part of V-Day. “V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sex slavery.”

Here are all the details. See you there!

The local cast!

Rolla Area Citizens for Women 2014
Presents a Benefit Production of

Eve Ensler’s
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES

with
Members of RACW: Connie Roberts, Em Strong, Erin Brenner, Hunter Watson, Rebecca Guthrie, and Summer Thorp-Lancaster

FEBRUARY 21, 2014 at 7:00 PM

Venue:
Cedar Street Playhouse
701 North Cedar Street
Rolla, Missouri 65401

$5.00 Minimum Donation per person CASH ONLY
Benefits The Russell House

-”Spellbinding, funny, and almost unbearably moving . . . it is both a work of art and an incisive piece of cultural history, a poem and a polemic, a performance and a balm and a benediction.” —Variety

-“In the current era, it takes some brain racking to think of anyone else doing anything quite like Ensler. She’s a countercultural consciousness-raiser, an empowering figure, a truth-teller.”
–Chicago Tribune

-“Eve Ensler wants to save the world…and don’t even think of getting in her way.” -New York Times Magazine

V-Day is a global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls. Further information about V-Day can be found at:

www.vday.org

www.onebillionrising.org

V-Day RACW is sponsored locally by Rolla Area Citizens for Women, The Giddy Goat Coffeehouse, The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Rolla, Trenton Lloyd Mosley Photography, Rolla Birth Network, Laura Crivello at Bella Rouge.

Strong Parents, Strong Babies, Strong Communities

We Believe…

That mothers are strong

We Believe…

That when mothers are supported in their strength,

they grow strong babies and strong communities…

Parenting is hard work that begins long before we first lay eyes upon our children. It starts pre-conception, when we eat leafy greens (such as spinach) to increase our folic acid or exercise to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It continues as we think about whether to use a midwife or physician for prenatal care, home or hospital birth, and what interventions, if any, we’d like. As we labor to bring our babies into this world, we dig deep within ourselves, deeper than we’ve ever been before….often surprising ourselves by just how much we can endure. During early postpartum and new parenthood, we forge a family: new, different, dynamic. We care simultaneously for many needs, not all of which we understand. Sometimes, we feel weak but always, especially during those times, we are strong.

To be a parent is to be strong.

—

Strong Communities

Strong communities

come from strong parents…

Strong parents…

come from strong communities.

Only by working together,

supporting each other,

can we effect change.

In that spirit, Rolla Birth Network offers several forms of community support. Check the Events page for upcoming Birth Circles and other events. A work in progress, our Local Resource Directory is a listing of various resources applicable to pregnant women and parents. These include care providers, parenting groups, social services and more. The community events page lists the outreach events hosted by Rolla Birth Network, as well as events hosted by other organizations may be of interest.

Click here for events.

Click here for the in-progress resource directory.