I am the husband to a beautiful and loving woman, Bree, and the proud father of an amazing young boy, William.  My wife and I both knew that we wanted her to be able to stay home with William.  We have been blessed with the ability to operate as a single income family and it has been one of the best things we have done.  We were fortunate to be able to do this through planning, hard work, as well as support that not every family receives.

I work in retail management, specifically managing specialty big box retail stores.  In my time as a manager, I have had multiple team members that have worked for me that had children born during their time employed at the store.  It has given me a good grasp on the basics of FMLA laws, but also on the reality that many new mothers can't afford 3 months without a paycheck.

It was this exact circumstance, in which a team member "voluntarily" returned to work because she couldn't afford not to, that prompted the question.  "What if she could afford not to leave her baby for work?"  "What if she did have an option to stay home with her baby, even if only for those three months?"

I looked into it.  There are many groups that exist to support young families and mothers in multiple ways.  There are groups that help fund housing, bills, utilities, food, transportation and more.  But none of these groups were built specifically to fight for and fund time.  That is what I wanted to be able to do.

Most groups are built around the needs of the parent and designed to support them.  Strong Home Starts is intentionally designed around asking what is best for the baby.

We are trying to fund time.  For baby.