Dear Friends and Families,
This is Mr. Bean talking. I remember roughly 5 years ago when my wife went about the trepidation about forming her own business.
I don’t know if you know how many hours and weekends I have spent setting her business up. I remember moving into a location in North Dallas, then to Addison, then to Plano. Next time we meet, let’s talk about the frustration about me driving a rented truck from Home Depot and how I got the floor molding transported to the new space. Frustration was always an emotion I had during these times. But so was hope.
Mighty Oaks was founded initially to service face-to-face counseling offerings, for children, adults, and families. With the rise of the COVID-19 virus and ensuing Stay-In-Place orders in Dallas and Plano, we have had to re-evaluate how our “what” and “how” have changed, but our “why” hasn’t changed-help acorns go from small to tall.
Since mid-March we have suspended physical contact in our classes and sessions and transitioned to online offerings and telehealth. We began trying to put out online content for kids yoga, bootcamp, chair yoga, and other wellness offerings. The Stay-In-Place orders made us believe that it was imperative that we continue to provide offerings that supported individuals and families. All of these offerings were published as donation-based, i.e. free to those that need them and opportunities available for anyone that had the means to support us to donate to our business.
The response from the community has been amazing. We have had supporters that donated money to pay for sessions for families in need. We have also had families donate money to be “seed money” for our company to grow. There have been so many happy tears in our house, as these donations have helped us continue to meet our contracted rent for our physical space, pay our employees, and afford updates to our technology. We are beyond appreciative to the people that have kept us going. If you feel called to donate to our business or an individual/family, we have designated buttons on our website.
That being said, we are tirelessly planning for your family, while also making sure our services are approachable. We will continue to offer one “donation-based” class per week on YouTube, but will also need to move to a membership-based service for our offerings, to support our small business.
During our experience of Stay-in-Place, we are very inspired by our mantra, “Moving Forward.” We do not want to mourn for what we have lost, and we are not predicting what will happen at the end of this pandemic (though we acknowledge that people are at different levels of grief.) We are choosing the steps we need to take to move forward. I have created a series of membership levels (Acorn, Sapling, Tree, Oak, and Friend of the Forest.) I am not sure if I did it right. This is my First Freaking Time in a pandemic (Thanks, Brene Brown, for the validation). Please visit https://www.mightyoakscounseling.com/ if you are interested in purchasing a membership.
I personally do not feel that there are timelines, goals, or endpoints that will make me feel comfortable at this time. I am also not comfortable that I might put effort into avenues that are not profitable to the needs of our clients and also to our employees. I daily review which videos are getting the best “views” through Google Analytics. But I would also appreciate your input via our Moving Forward Survey.
My personal family (which includes no human children, but a kitten who is insisting on an inhuman level of interaction, and a dog that vacillates from being in a total quiet stupor to needing an incredible amount of stimulation) is fine. Hope your family is well, too. Does anyone have tips for cutting curly hair at home?
Dr. Sarah and Mr. Bean enjoying a lunchtime picnic while Dr. Sarah is on a break from telehealth.
Stay safe. Stay healthy.
Shawn “Bean” Martin
Director of Yoga and Fitness
Mighty Oaks Counseling and Wellness
Comments