Sesh Coworking is working on building Houston's first female-focused coworking community space. 

Moving to Houston has brought me full-circle, back to that moment four years ago while living in Irvington, New York I desperately wanted to get to know other women in business around me.

I walked door-to-door introducing myself to my near-by business neighbors, trying to organize a ladies night. Eventually I found myself at the bottom of Irvington's very long and incredibly steep Main Street with an entire list of women I need to invite. Eventually I organized that list into an evening celebrating the village's staggeringly high number of women-owned businesses on Main Street. At that time there were 38 female owned and/or operated businesses lined along the steep hill stretching up from the Hudson River. I celebrated what I thought was an amazing number by organizing a group called WE (Women Entrepreneurs) to celebrate our small community that was supporting female-owned businesses. 

When we purchased our family home one village over in Dobbs Ferry, the folks in Irvington made it very clear that I wasn't going anywhere without continuing my work organizing business owners. Boxes barely unpacked I was introduced to a group of Dobbs Ferry villagers that were trying to revive the chamber of commerce that had been dead for nearly a decade. We gathered in the sweaty gym of the senior citizens center, seated in a circle of uncomfortable metal folding chairs and made a feeble attempt to divide and conquer certain tasks needed to get the non-for-profit started. 

It was this meeting that ignited a fire under me to make sure that this Chamber was successful. I was fueled by being a new property owner in the vicinity of the business district. I wanted to see a vibrant, thriving downtown for not only for my businesses own sake of surviving, but to see that the village I had now financially invested in would bring my family something more, I was hoping for a return in memories and community.

I researched the local community, built a database of businesses, went door-to-door introducing myself to each business owner, built our website on Wix, and pushed our feeble little group to move our meetings to far more interesting places that at least had beer. And thus began the Dobbs Ferry Chamber of Commerce. With each interaction came a hesitation from locals that the Chamber had failed before, but slowly we became a larger gathering of people. Eventually we were able to develop a downtown task force to address and eventually impact our local government to address issues we called the "Fast Five" regarding speed limits, parking, and pedestrian safety within the business district. My dedication to the community became apparent and I took on the role as President.  

With the traction of the "Fast Five" came attention, soon our meetings and events were filled with business owners from not just Dobbs Ferry, but Irvington, Hastings-on-Hudson, Ardsley as well as other communities located throughout Westchester County. The idea to unite the villages along the Hudson River had always been lurking in the back of my mind, but I never anticipated the demand to come so quickly. In the fall of 2017 The Rivertowns Chamber of Commerce was official. We kicked off the first meeting with the largest meeting attendance to date and finally had enough traction to begin forming other committees that could expand into larger scale community events such Rivertown Public Market. 

Then I learned I was moving to Houston and that I would have to walk away from the last three and a half years of building what had become The Rivertowns Chamber. Being surrounded by creatives, women, business owners, and other dedicated and inspiring people trying to make impact became ingrained in my life's purpose, outside of motherhood & jewelry - of course!

I discovered the Meet-Up previously known as Girl Sesh on Instagram and attended my first pop-up coworking event at A2nd Cup in August here in the Heights. I was hooked instantly. I had an instant network of local resources tried and tested by other working women at my finger tips. I had women to chat with about work, school, local grocery stores, and running trails. I had a Houston community. When I realized that Meredith, the founder of Girl Sesh, was working towards developing a brick and mortar home for Girl Sesh I felt a natural gravitational pull towards helping her make it success. 

And the rest, you can say is her-story ;-) I am now a co-founder behind Sesh Coworking and proudly call Meredith my business partner. We are currently working on finding a home for Sesh Coworking and further developing our community for the working women of Houston. It is our mission to provide working women with a coworking space that fosters personal and professional growth, community, support and productivity.  We aim to provide our members with the tools needed to be the most effective, efficient, energetic and empowered version of themselves.

Now - pardon me while I go to a networking event ;-) Houston - Sesh is coming soon!