WingHaven is a wonderful community to raise a family in. You may not know this, but a wonderful company called Growing Tree Resource Center has found their home in our Community, right on the boardwalk, and they house amazing businesses that are focused on helping you to raise your young family. This month we are excited to share these resources with you! 

Casey Garcia started Growing Tree Resource Center with 3 other families. These families knew they wanted to homeschool and also knew they wanted a community of families to learn alongside. Homeschool was a new concept for Casey’s family. She pulled her daughter from public school in November of 2019. Then the pandemic happened and a bunch of families decided to home educate so we got together and found a place where my mother, Diane Moran-Rossi could help us figure out what we were doing. We have been building organically ever since. My mom has been in education for 26 years, and with a Masters in Education, has been working with kids in the gifted program, students that needed more than a classroom could offer so it was an easy decision for her to build a center similar to that of the program she came from.

Officially Growing Tree is a non-profit run by a board. Unofficially they are families wanting to give children a unique learning experience. So while they have guides and service providers working here to enrich the lives of this community it feels like one big family. They listen to the needs and accommodate where they can to meet those needs. 

Growing Tree has a mission to enrich the lives of the community. Families are welcome to gather for collaboration, events and activities. The growing community values exploration of innate intelligence, encouragement and support.  They offer unique programming that informs, educates, entertains, and connects people to our services while promoting lifelong learning. Holistic living, nurturing the mind, body and soul are highly valued.

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One business that serves the community through the Growing Tree Community is Speech.Love.Language., LLC.. Speech.Love.Language provides speech and language therapy to clients ages 3 and up. They provide speech and language evaluations, treatment, and parent/caregiver/community education. Speech.Love.Language specializes in neurodiverse-affirming strategies. They do not put a definition on play and allow children to learn in ways that work for them.

Owner, Niki Hartrum, has worked as a school-based speech-language pathologist since August 2012 and saw the need for therapies and education outside of the school setting. She has a master's degree in Communication Disorders from Fontbonne University and completed a graduate certificate in Assistive Technology from Bowling Green University in 2018. Niki became a Natural Language Acquisition-trained clinician in 2022 and a certified yoga teacher in September 2023!

Niki began seeing clients out of her home in 2018. In 2020 she spent a lot of time walking her dog and walked past the Growing Tree Resource Center in Winghaven. It looked like a school-type setting so Niki contacted the owner, Casey Garcia, about having a space to provide speech-language therapy to kids. 

Hannah Maliszewski, speech-language pathologist, started with Speech.Love.Language in October 2023. She has experience working with clients in a variety of settings including schools, homes, daycares, and clinics. She has been working in public schools and early intervention since 2021. Hannah has been an amazing asset to the team!

Niki shared with us, "Being a parent/caregiver or sibling of a child with different needs can be isolating. My goal is to create a space for children of all ability levels to meet, play, and for families to connect. Stay tuned for neurodiverse-affirming playgroups and parent/caregiver support. Visit us at speechlovelanguage.com or email at speechlovelanguage@gmail.com"

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Katy Gilda-Fry is the owner of Vocally Owned also located in the Growing Tree Resource Center. Katy is an ASCAP published songwriter and professional musician. Katy has been a professional musician and worked within professional and community theatre since 2001... during the pandemic, she was unable to produce live performance art and was feeling very depressed and missed this form of expression. Some great friends of hers encouraged her to launch this Fine Arts Academy to teach lessons one on one as the world began to slowly open up again. Katy went from teaching 2 students to 16 and a long waitlist within a few months!

Then, she began expanding and started offering camps and micro-theatre productions that feature the work of local play-writes. From there, she has expanded into wellness events for women, like meditations, female bonding and empowerment events.

Katy met Casey, president of Growing Tree Resource Center, and after hearing her vision, just knew that she was home. They have created so many wonderful, impactful events for their students and community. It is nourishing to the soul!

Katy offers one on one coaching for vocal, guitar and acting. She also offers wellness events and other types of live performances. Katy told us, "I am always reassessing to see what needs the community has, and then offering programming that we feel would be welcomed or is needed. Meeting you where you are in your performance goals and helping you obtain the next ones is our goal!"

The community can reach out to them directly through Facebook, instagram or by phone. They are always open to creating new events to serve the betterment of the community; have an idea? Reach out to Katy at 636-497-0285!

Review: "My daughter loves working with Ms Katy! She used to be very shy and self conscious about singing in front of others, but absolutely loved to sing. Since working with Ms Katy she has really started to come out of her shell! I was surprised to find out from her school teacher that she has been regularly performing in front of the class, something she would NEVER have done before."

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Thrive Theatrics STL is another company reaching the community through the Growing Tree Resource Center. Owned by, Tess Spiezio, their motto is: "Helping your child to THRIVE in confidence and creativity." And this is also our mission statement. Our goal is to help children thrive in confidence and creativity by expressing themselves freely through performance.”

Tess has an Associates of Arts in Early Childhood Education and has been in many productions, as well as directed many productions. She currently is an active member of her local community theatre to stay practiced and fresh, and is always seeking out new ideas to bring to the classroom.

Tess shared with us, “To me, we thrive the most when we are creative and allowed to express that creativity freely. To "thrive" is to grow, and flourish, not just survive. I feel that without a creative outlet, many of us would never thrive. So, Thrive Theatrics felt like a natural name and came to me quite quickly. My logo consists of flowers and plants thriving, or growing, out of the well known comic/dramatic theatre masks. This represents the children growing and thriving through performance and the confidence that they gain by doing so.”

Thrive Theatrics offers theatre classes and performance opportunities to students ages 6 to 14. These can be improv classes or shows. They gain audition experience and learn to sharpen their creative tools and improvisation abilities. The way students are allowed to collaborate on the performance material is very unique at Thrive. It is never, "here's the script and here's what you need to do." It is, "Why do you think this character says this? What do you think would be the best way to show that to the audience?" "Do you have any ideas that would help improve this scene or dialogue?" The team at Thrive tries to incorporate as much fun as possible. Whether that is letting the students add lines or a dance party at curtain call. The goal is for them to learn about theatre but also to LOVE it and have a blast doing it. 

Interested families can find them on Facebook, instagram, or the Growing Tree website and sign up for classes!

Review: “This is the program we didn't know we were missing - Miss Tess's/Thrive Theatrics acting & improv classes quickly became my daughter's favorite activity of the week, I would highly recommend it for any kid!!"

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Growing Tree Resource Center owner, Casey, told us; “We are unique in the fact that our target families are homeschoolers, secular (we have no religious affiliation) and we are not a co-op (parents are not obligated to teach). We recognize homeschool is a challenge taking on the responsibility of your child's future can be scary but when doing it alongside a community of families who share similar values it gives a sense of security. School is the number one social norm and here we are breaking the norm, living against the grain and bringing others along on this journey. 

I’m just a mom with a dream for a better future for my children. We are in our 4th year of building Growing Tree and it’s become so much more than I ever dreamed. This is hard for me to put us out there because I say all the time I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is the kids and families here are happy. We have created an inviting environment for kids to thrive and we would love for you to be a part of it.”