Most of the Bay Area Mothers Clubs were originally started by a wonderful and dynamic woman named Katie Williams Hoepke. Katie was first introduced to the concept of a Mothers Club when she read a notice about joining a playgroup which was part of the Huntington Beach Mothers Club. At the time, her daughter was 18 months old, she was pregnant with her second and she was living in a new city 3000 miles from home, family and friends. She was feeling alone and miserable and she counts finding the Mothers Club as one of her blessings in life.

In the Mothers Club, Katie found support, as well as choices and opportunities. Per Katie, “It provided alternatives to her solitude, challenges for her energy, and avenues for her talent and opened doors for her parenting education.” Two years later, Katie was moving again, this time to New Jersey. Egad, there was no Mothers Club here! She and a woman she met in the playground decided to start their own club and a month later 25 women had their first club meeting.

As our luck would have it, Katie once again ended up moving, this time to Northern California. Her children were now of school age but she still felt that the Mothers Club was important concept and should be expanded and shared. She wrote a book, ‘Mothers Club, Nurturing the Nurturers’, and started forming Mothers Clubs by offering a class through local Park and Recreation Departments. The moms who took these classes became the ‘founding members’ of the individual Mothers Clubs which are now operating in many of the Bay Area cities. Our hats are off to Katie for spreading the wonderfully supportive concept of the Mothers Club.