Firmly Planted Spotlight: The Journey to Seedlings — Savannah Bates

In the spring of 2017 I was a lonely mama with two little boys, ages 3 and 1. My days were spent at home making food, cleaning food, playing on the floor, cleaning up toys, chasing toddlers, wiping tears, singing songs, lots of snuggles, and diapers diapers diapers. I yearned for adult interaction, and especially for the company of someone else in my shoes.

I figured I was alone in this, that most other moms must be connected to communities. However, it was through Facebook Marketplace I realized I was very much not alone in my isolation. Moms would show up to my door to buy various baby items, and next thing you know we were laughing and talking about all things parenting. This happened again and again. As I closed the door after selling a Bumbo to a sweet mama, it hit me, there are so many lonely moms out there! I wanted to find a way to get these moms connected and build a community where we could support each-other.

It was there that the Lord planted the idea of Seedlings in my heart. Seedlings is a homeschool co-op for families with kids ages 0-12. Most homeschool co-ops understandably require the oldest child to at least be in 1st grade to participate. This left a huge gap for families with only babies and toddlers. Seedlings allows mamas to join even if their oldest is a newborn baby.

Seedlings gatherings always starts with chapel where we sing worship songs and listen to a devotion. Then kids divide up into nursery and age appropriate classes, taught by the moms. Moms (and some dads!) help during half of the class time, and have the other half off to fellowship with other parents over coffee.

For our first session in fall of 2017, we had around 20 kids participate. Today we have over 150 kids each session. This represents about 60 families. Seedlings is one of the most sought after programs at Firmly Planted, with registration filling up within 10 minutes. It has exploded in ways far beyond I ever imagined!

Through Seedlings we have seen families encouraged, moms connected, and life-long friendships built. The gospel has been preached and we are so humbled to have seen whole families come to Christ! Seedlings continues to thrive and breathe life into the young families at Firmly Planted and we can’t wait to see where God takes it in the future. Find out more about Seedlings and how you can be a part of it right here. 

Savannah Bates
Seedlings Founder