It’s a struggle every mother can relate to – trying to find the balance between caring for your family and focusing on your career. You want to give 100 percent to both, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Sometimes, doing it all seems impossible.
Kelly Porter can relate. Before she opened her own small business in 2017, she was both a full-time mother and employee in what she describes as the hardest year of her life. Now as a busy mom to two little boys – 3-year-old Wilson and 5-month-old Jameson – Kelly spends her days with her kids, but also works part-time as a consultant to philanthropic organizations that are invested in helping more people gain the postsecondary skills and training they need to be successful after high school.
The balance Kelly struck between caring for her children and doing her job works well for her family, but when they moved from Broad Ripple to Carmel in 2017, she ran into another hurdle. Her older son, Wilson, attends Church at the Crossing’s Early Childhood Center three days a week, and Kelly was worried her now-longer drive to and from the ECC would eat away at her work time.
But then, something happened that Kelly describes as divine intervention. Around the same time her family moved to Carmel, The Haverstick opened. With a coffee shop and co-working space on the same campus as her son’s school, The Haverstick turned out to be the perfect space for Kelly to work without losing any time with her job or her family.
“As much as I love a good (coconut) latte, this place has been so much more to me!” Kelly says. “It has allowed me (for well over a year now) to ‘work from home’ without having to waste any of my work time driving.”
A large chunk of Kelly’s week is spent at The Haverstick – three days a week for five hours a day, to be exact. As one of the shop’s first “regulars,” Kelly says she was drawn in by the comfortable seating, the welcoming baristas and the on “point” coffee that’s always freshly brewed.
Over time, Kelly says The Haverstick has grown and more regulars like herself spend their days working alongside her. But even with the growing crowd and the music that’s always playing in the background, the stay-at-home mom says The Haverstick is peaceful enough that she can hear herself think – something that’s not always true at larger coffee shops around town.
The relaxing atmosphere at The Haverstick makes it easy for Kelly to focus and be productive, something else that’s not always true at noisier remote working spots. And without the back and forth of a long commute, she’s able to devote herself fully to her job while still having ample time to spend with her boys.
“I couldn’t (and still can’t) believe the church would devote so much space to the public without asking anything in return – what an incredible ministry!” Kelly says. “It has been and continues to be such a blessing to me.”