It took a pandemic for her to find her community. Now, she wants to help you find yours.
In April of 2020, I was approaching my due date with my first son and everything was scary and uncertain. Partners had been banned from the hospital, and protocols and advice were changing daily. (Thankfully partners were allowed in by the time I gave birth). We couldn’t see family or friends in person, and we felt utterly isolated.
In order to survive this difficult time, I knew I needed to connect with others going through the same experience, so my husband and I joined an expectant parent support group through an amazing community called Birthsmarter a few weeks before my due date. We met 9 other NYC-based couples virtually with whom we shared our fears and offered our support. We cried (a lot), we laughed, we spent hours leaning on each other, and it was one of the only things that kept us going during a very dark time. Once we actually brought our son home, it truly felt like it was us against the world. We weren’t even sure if it was safe to walk outside, so we hunkered down at home. We took the time to get to know our baby and connected virtually with the support group who made us feel like we weren’t alone.
I then decided that this kind of support was critical, and that I needed to build a community even closer to home, so I took to a neighborhood Facebook group to ask if any other new parents would want to meet in real life. As a Digital Marketer, I know the power of social media to build brands and cultivate professional communities, but I hadn’t considered how powerful it could be on a local level to build a network of neighbors. In the 14 years that I had lived in New York City before this, I had always struggled to find a community. Of course there’s no shortage of people in New York, including a good number of my friends, but I hadn’t really gotten to know my neighbors. Before the pandemic hit, we had even considered moving to the suburbs to find our community there.
Luckily, there was a lot of interest in my neighborhood Facebook group. We gathered some families to go on stroller walks, host happy hours in the park (masked and socially distanced at the time, of course), and meet with our kids at the playground. I couldn’t believe how connected I felt once I found these other parents who were not only my actual neighbors, but who were going through a similar experience of navigating new parenthood in the early days of the pandemic. We rallied around a common life experience and bonded quickly. It was truly life-changing.
Inspired by the amazing community I was building at home, I decided to prioritize cultivating meaningful relationships in my career as well. I spent years chasing titles and raises climbing the ranks at advertising and media agencies in New York City, measuring my own success against these virtues. After my experience having a baby during the pandemic, I decided that my true measures of success would be to have more time to spend with my family and to select who I would work with. So I reached out to a few friends I had made in the industry throughout my career, and thankfully several of them had opportunities for me. This gave me the push I needed to start my own freelance marketing consulting business, and my client list is now an amazing group of people that I selected specifically because I knew working with them would bring me immense joy. Making this shift was the best career decision I have ever made.
In early 2021 when I was a few months pregnant with our second son, I set out once again to build another local community of parents. This time, the response was even more overwhelming. In the span of several months, we collected over 150 moms who were either expecting a baby later that year or had recently had one. Since starting the group last year and organizing conversation threads on the messaging platform Discord, we have discussed postpartum depression and anxiety, rallied together to support causes we believe in, and helped each other navigate all types of real life situations. We give advice, we offer support and we make each other feel seen and heard during the often challenging journey through early parenthood. I have met some of my closest friends through these groups, and I just don’t think I could have made it where I am today without this community. Parenting, especially in the time of COVID, is an experience that can be so isolating for many, yet we have found a way to make it feel engaged and supportive.
I am so grateful that I was inspired to build a community in my neighborhood and find my people both personally and professionally, because it has been absolutely critical to my well-being and happiness. If you want to get to know more people in your neighborhood, there is a community just waiting to be built, and I know that you will find your people too.
Here’s my best advice for how to find and cultivate a local community:
Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Take charge, network, make introductions and connections and spearhead organizing the group.
Explore your interests. Do you love books? Start a book club! Just had a baby? Seek out other new parents! Is running your passion? Find a local running club!
Take it to social media. Visit your local neighborhood groups, local interest groups, Buy Nothing pages, etc. and put some feelers out to see if anyone wants to get together in real life. Facebook Groups are great for finding the right people, and messaging apps like WhatsApp, Slack and Discord can help you organize your conversations by topic.
Don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t happen right away. Keep trying. You may be surprised at how many others are looking for their people too!
With more than 15 years of experience in digital marketing for culinary and lifestyle brands, Rachel led social media strategy, brand planning and strategic partnerships at some of the world's leading advertising agencies. Today, she runs her own digital marketing consultancy, and she joined the Weelicious & One Potato teams as Head of Marketing in 2021. Rachel lives in South Brooklyn with her husband Patrick, sons Max & Noah and doodles Charlie & Chewy.