Summer Camp Planning from PlanSummer.com
Author: Shannon Miller Lifestyle
What are you doing for your kids this summer, to help them have fun and keep active?
Are you looking for a Jacksonville Summer Camp for your kids?
- Not quite sure where to look?
- Don’t have the time?
Lynn Layfield, now a full-time working mother with two sons, is the founder of PlanSummer.com. Lynn had been able to stay home with her two boys for seven years, but then she was forced back into the work force when the recession hit, and her husband lost his job. “It wasn’t what I planned for myself, and it certainly wasn’t what I wanted. All of a sudden I had to redefine my role as mother.”
Although becoming a working mom presented many challenges for Layfield, she was thankful that her boys were both school-age, which helped with a lot of the child-care issues. “I couldn’t believe all of the things I had to juggle. I had the boys in after-school care, and just when it seemed like we were getting in a groove, there was a holiday. I suddenly have no one to watch my kids that day.”
The hardest part was always making plans for how Lynn’s two boys would be cared for during the 2 and ½ months of summer. “Every March I would be struck with this feeling of panic. Not only would I be working all day, taking my boys to soccer practice, feeding them and helping them with homework – I would be up sometimes until 1 a.m. scanning the computer for summer camps and activities to try and find something that my kids would enjoy to put on the empty calendar which was my new worst enemy.”
Layfield found comparing the various summer child care options to be difficult and frustrating. Using her experience in computer programming, Lynn took on the problem of summer child care on behalf of all working mothers in the Jacksonville, Florida area, and created PlanSummer.com. She built a site to be a one-stop, one-source place that makes it easy for working moms to search through the variety of schedules for numerous Jacksonville Summer Camps, plan before and aftercare, easily identify values and discounts, and then quickly share their plans with whoever they needed to.
“I am very excited about this website. I started out as a mother who embraced the idea of staying home with my kids, and because of financial circumstances I became like so many other mothers out there – women trying to do their best for their families and their employers. We’ve designed this website to benefit both. If a mother can plan her children’s summer schedule without weeks of scouring different websites or thumbing through a myriad of camp guides then it leaves her more time to be both a better mother and a more productive employee.”
Lynn has actually helped keep the website in tune with other working moms in the community by hiring several work from home moms to help out part time in her company. “It’s a choice to stay home, and often a sacrifice. This isn’t about who has it harder or who’s a better parent. It’s about supporting all moms. And the fact is there is a tremendous talent pool in at-home moms,” Layfield explains. “ I guess that is part of the reason I feel so good about this new venture, it helps working moms like me, and allows for at-home moms to use their skills in a capacity that reminds them that they are more than mothers. I think it’s good for all of us.”
PlanSummer.com is a woman-owned, privately held online company, based in Jacksonville, Florida.
Contact Information:
Office Number (904) 438-4908
Lynn Layfield
President
[email protected]
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