MN Baby Expo in review

What a weekend and what an experience.  You know me, I'm always up for a good learning opportunity, and boy, did I have my weekend cut out for me!

On the way home Sunday night ( at midnight) I looked at my husband and said, "I have learned at least 185,000 new things in the last three months and 100,000 of those were in the last five days!"

There is nothing like learning under the gun, and there it was, laying right there in front of me.  I learned to be even more flexible, to push my limits, to broaden my understanding for how things ( and people) work (or don't work).  I was able to watch my team endure, persevere and get extremely creative under pressure, pulling in people who have never worked with us before, only to watch them completely go above and beyond the call of duty.  The people who work with My Healthy Beginning are authentic, hard working, calm in the face of adversity and just totally committed to community...kind of can't write this without tearing up!

We know our strong points, where we'll make a difference in events to come and how we can create a cohesive and organized team within a pre-existing template. Fun, fun, fun.

As I wrote up press releases last night for the media that called in ( yeah!), I was able to reflect upon little things that have large impact upon change, and got goosebumps as I attached photos from the weekend.

The MN Baby Expo, despite the wrinkles of a first year in a new city where they don't yet have a following, was able to donate 1257 pounds of food to Second Harvest Heartland, which will feed ober 1,000 hungry Minnesotans.  That is something to be proud of, and thank you to all the attendees who found it in their hearts and cupboards to bring non perishables in for donation.

 
  

Also with the help of Planet Promotions, the MN Baby Expo was able to recycle over 66% of the waste from this event.  That is a significant amount of salvaged waste considering Planet Promotions studies which prove that "a single event, serving over 2,000 attendees at a time (the MN Baby Expo saw over 4,000), can produce as much waste in an hour as a family of four will produce in one year".  That again is something remarkable to celebrate.  Thank you to Tamara Taylor of Planet Promotions for that support.

 

I tell you what, there is nothing like seeing the My Healthy Beginning booth space with people milling around looking for information, using Eco-Kids Playdough with their kids, children making jumpropes, mamas looking for support and resources and our experts hanging out with us to do so.  We had several speakers within our space with mothers and families turning out for more information such as Gail Tully's Belly Mapping and Spinning Babies talks, and Lori Hendricksons craniosacral work and talks on the importance of belly sleeping babies.  I get another rush of adrenalin just thinking about it. 

 

Thank you to all who came out to support this event and for supporting My Healthy Beginning!

Comments

[Rebecca]

Hey Nichi, I just wanted to tell you that it was an awesome event. I went on Sunday and looked for you, but I'm sure you were busy doing your thing. So much great information. My only regret is that I had a haircut appt in the afternoon so we had to rush out of there. There were so many speakers I wanted to see but didn't get a chance. I even won a carseat!!!! So glad it was a success :)
Rebecca

[Lisa Thompson]

I am so glad to hear how well it went, Nichi! I hope to make it next year.

[Faith]

I attended with my mom and sister. We got there at 8:30 saturday and were sad to see the line but we still got the Mommy Bag with oodles of goodies. Maybe next year on those TV ads you could mention after mentioning being the first there to get a bag that you have to be early. A good friend of mine was the first one to not get one and would of been there earlier if the ad would have mentioned that. We LOVED the event and can't wait for the next one. It was so much better than the Womens Expo shopping was great, speakers were great but hard to choose and stages were not easy to find. We spent a little over 3 hours there and will be there extra early next time.