Every day is Mother’s Day for Naperville entrepreneur Cathy Subber. For the past 15 years she’s been connecting with and supporting local mothers around town through her Branch Moms Community network, which now has 90,000 members in Naperville and beyond.
“Our mission is to make sure moms always know they have a place they can belong and can find friendship, support and local resources,” said Subber, a local chiropractor. “We have a ‘be kind’ policy and want to be warm, welcoming and inclusive.”
The idea was the brainchild of Kelli Thompson, who in 2009 was one of Subber’s employees at Advanced Health of Naperville.
“Kelli came to me with an idea she said she had had in a dream to start an online community for moms,” Subber said. “I helped her host some small events, becoming the first business sponsor for what was then the Naperville Moms Network. She ran it for over a year with a thousand local moms. In 2011 Kelli transferred to Austin, Texas, so I took it over as a passion project because I didn’t want it to end.”
By 2019, Subber saw the opportunity to expand further so they rebranded as The Branch. The organization now has chapters in Aurora, Lisle and Bolingbrook — and beyond.
Although Subber’s sons are now 20 and 21, she remembers what it was like having no family around to help when she moved to Naperville when they were small.
“When they were really young, it was hard because I was working. We continued to hear story after story of moms not having the community around them,” she said. “Sometimes you can live in a place for 10 years and not find friends. There can be very lonely times when you are a young mom.”
Thanks to the Branch Moms Community, mothers have a resource to connect on anything from companionship to business contacts. There are smaller groups within the organization covering everything from moms’ nights out to yoga and playdates. There is also help for older mothers and divorcees.
“We listen to the community to see what there is a need for,” Subber said.
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While the Branch is not a nonprofit, there are no membership fees because she was able to find sponsors, including Naperville Bank and Trust, The Primrose School and Naperville Park District, once they reached 5,000 members. However, because they’ve always been involved in charitable giving, the next step is to create a 501c3 charity for tax purposes so they can help others on a larger scale.
“We’ve always done charitable giving. Through the Branch Giving Tree, we have provided holiday gifts for local moms to give to their children,” she said. “We are now creating a 501c3 ready for the next holiday season. It’s about moms helping moms.”
Subber says she wants the group to grow organically. There has to be a need, but any new area also needs a paid mom coordinator. The newest group is in Florida because one of the Naperville moms wanted to start one when she and her family moved there, she said.
“I don’t have a five-year vision,” she said. “It will grow to what it wants to be. It’s something that will be pruned, watered and grow to what is most authentic. Not money-driven but mission-driven.”
Her drive comes from her entrepreneurial spirit, she says. As a little girl she told her mother she wanted to open her own gift shop when she grew up. While that hasn’t happened yet, she is running her own health business.
“I graduated from chiropractic school and went into business on my own. I learned (trial) by fire,” she said. “I had never been trained in business. As a single provider, I had to do everything from marketing to cleaning the carpet.
“From being on the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce and Young Professional Network, I took the courses they had on leadership and it helped me gain confidence and an entrepreneurship mindset. You have to be OK with taking risk and not knowing what will happen. It can be paralyzing.”
Subber believes moms need to take care of themselves — and not just on Mother’s Day.
“They need to take the time for self-care, to fill up their cups so they can do everything they do as moms,” she said. “They need to keep their energy up because if they are doing well, their kids are happy. That spreads to their partners and the community.”
Hilary Decent is a freelance journalist who moved from England to Naperville in 2007. She can be reached at [email protected].