Healthy Home Workshops

Matt and Anne Schneider, Co-Founders of Bluegrass for Babies Inc., with their two boys.

Bluegrass for Babies is launching new interactive programs, such as their Healthy Home Workshops, to help parents create the optimal environment for raising healthy children.

Co-founders Anne Schneider and her husband Matt launched Bluegrass for Babies, Inc. to give back to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center after their son, Nicholas, needed life-saving surgery at the hospital when he was less than two days old. After the hospital gave their son world-class emergency care, they searched for a way to show their gratitude, and Bluegrass for Babies was their answer. “We are incredibly grateful to Cincinnati Children’s for not only saving his life, but providing our whole family with excellent care,” says Anne.

Today, Bluegrass for Babies’ events and educational programs support The Perinatal Institute at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, which provides comprehensive care for infants before, during and after delivery.

Bluegrass for Babies offers many diverse workshops and events, such as their popular Healthy Home Workshops. “Content for the programs is inspired through our partnership with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and through other leading national research,” explains Anne.

The Healthy Home Workshops were inspired through the Schneider’s journey of discovering that the environments of parents and young children are incredibly important to establishing the foundation for a healthy life. The Healthy Home Workshops for Kids provide play-based, multi-sensory activities that empower children and families to improve their health through gardening, nutrition, recycling and toxin awareness. The workshops are currently hosted at the Duke Energy Children’s Museum and are targeted to families of preschoolers and early elementary aged children. Examples of the activities include instructing children on how to plant and tend to their own pizza garden, measure and mix their own non-toxic cleaners, and dig through a worm compost bin.

They also recently hosted five Healthy Home Workshops specifically for parents at the Cincinnati Museum Center. “These workshops were possible through partnering with local experts such Greener Stock, Sheaology Organics USA, One Small Garden, Blooming Vitality Wellness, Liz McGavran Custom Interiors, and Flourish Landscape & Interior Design,” says Anne. The workshops included making non-toxic soaps and household cleaning products, making your own rain barrel, and a demonstration on growing your own organic baby food.

Individual workshop attendance varies depending on Cincinnati Museum Center attendance. In 2014, they have already hosted over 250 people at their various workshops. The Healthy Home Workshops for Kids are free with admission to the Duke Energy Children’s Museum. The price of the Healthy Home Workshops for Parents ranged from free to $10.

“Our Healthy Home Workshops focus on practical, hands on activities to help families create optimal environments to raise healthy children, right from the start,” Anne explains. “The content is based on the incredibly relevant and expanding field of children’s environmental health. We are unique because there is a current gap in health education at all ages regarding how to create a healthy home environment.”

Their educational outreach goal is to expand their reach through partnering with health care providers and educators to provide impactful educational tools centered around practical ways one can impact their own health and the health of their family through creating a healthy home environment. Additionally, their fundraising efforts have recently been focused to help propel the advancement of children’s environmental health research and its impact through their partnership with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Anne suggests that those interested in learning more should “like” Bluegrass for Babies on Facebook to stay on top of their upcoming news and events.