Were you breastfed as a baby? If you’re a parent, did you or your partner breastfeed your child? Society takes breastfeeding for granted - a natural ability all mothers possess. But in reality, breastfeeding does not come easily for all moms. Lactation can be influenced by health conditions and stress - something we’ve all had plenty of this past year. New moms need support, and babies didn’t stop being born because of coronavirus. How did the pandemic change what that support looks like? And are things returning to normal?

This Mother’s Day, we spend the episode with someone who found her calling helping moms. 

Oh, go call your mom.

When Crystal McLean asked for a book about money for her third-grade daughter, the Barnes & Noble employee just looked blankly at her. There was no such thing, she was told. So instead of pushing off financial literacy lessons for her young daughter, Crystal wrote the book she had hoped to find. "Harmoney & the Empty Piggybank: A Book about Money Budgeting Entrepreneurship and Persistence" introduces kids to handling money while helping parents facilitate conversations about financial responsibility. Crystal recently partnered with CEED and the Boys & Girls Club to distribute her book and a #WealthyBox to kids, in the hope that money will no longer be a taboo topic between children and adults. 

Getting your hair done is a personal, face-to-face affair. You sit in the swivel chair and the stylist makes a masterpiece out of the mop on your head that you walked in with...or at least gets your bangs out of your eyes. And while you're there, you might share more with them about your relationship struggles or work stress than you would with any other person you only see every six to eight weeks. But in a pandemic, that intimate feeling of visiting your hairstylist has become much more difficult. How can a service so up-close-and-personal survive a lockdown? In this episode, we hear how Joshua Gray-Heim of J.Co Salon and Blow- Dry Bar is navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.

When Suzy Hrabovsky first interviewed for a job at the WBC, she didn’t get it. She figured that the CEED founder and then-executive director, the late Sylvia Ray, didn’t like her. So Suzy turned back to her other career until another opportunity to join CEED cropped up 10 years later. Turns out, Suzy was wrong. Sylvia did like her—quite a bit, in fact—and after three years of serving as a board member, Sylvia asked Suzy to take the reins as the executive director of CEED. Now 20 years since that first failed interview, Suzy continues to champion women’s empowerment through economic means. In a continuation of the last Meet the Staff episode, this special installment of Destination Success features CEED executive director Suzy Hrabovsky. She shares what inspires her work, how she kept herself and her team going through this pandemic, and how she honors the memory of her mentor and friend—Sylvia Ray.

Happy New Year! To celebrate the season of renewed ambition and goal-setting, we spend this episode getting to know the people behind the Women's Business Center. The team shares their history with the organization, their goals for 2021 and a few laughs. 

Tiffany Martinez is here to tell you: you're not a bad parent if you're sick of your kids, especially in this pandemic. Her business, Imagination Station, specializes in providing a nurturing environment in which kids can learn and play while the parents/caregivers get a well-deserved break. In this episode, Martinez shares how she persevered through many trials of 2020 — from precautionary closure due to COVID-19 and a PPP loan to moving and reopening under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

When Yesenia Portes imagined her first year as a food truck owner, she pictured parking her mobile bakery at fairs, parties and festivals to sell her gourmet cupcakes. But the coronavirus pandemic hit just two weeks after her grand opening. The owner of Sinful Decadence shares how she adjusted her business to thrive under the limits of COVID-19. Plus, we hear from Katlin McFadden — the director of the Women's Business Center.