Local mother gives national family newsletter a Northeast spin

Jeanné Hannum is the proud mother of four children. Each of her children has gone off to do great things–her oldest daughter is a food and personnel safety manager at Wegmans, her oldest son is a Navy petty officer, her youngest daughter is a Navy veteran and new mother and her youngest son is a Fulbright scholar. With such accolades, it seems that Hannum kept her children quite occupied as youth, but she said things were not so simple.

“I would have liked to have had a resource when I was a young mother with four children at home,” Hannum said. “I now enjoy finding things my granddaughter and her friends would enjoy doing.”

Hannum’s granddaughter and longing for an activity-filled resource inspired her to join the Macaroni Kid National e-newsletter. The newsletter started in early 2008 as friends and fellow mothers Joyce Shulman and Nicki Hemby shared a meal. Shulman came up with the idea of publishing a weekly newsletter of local events for mothers and their children in East Hampton, N.Y. Hemby agreed and they began publishing Macaroni Kid online in May 2008, going national a few months later.

“Every kid is a Macaroni Kid, not just ours,” Shulman said on the Macaroni Kid National website. “Let’s offer Macaroni Kid to mothers everywhere!”

Hannum joined Publisher Moms, the group responsible for nationwide publications of Macaroni Kid. She said it gave her a sense of solace.

“I was looking for something creative to do,” Hannum said. “I had been dealing with health issues which kept me from a lot of physical activity. [It seemed like] a creative outlet for me and a potential source of income.”

She launched the Northeast Philadelphia branch of Macaroni Kid in October 2010, with additional coverage in East Montgomery County.

Read the rest of our story on Philadelphia Neighborhoods, as part of our partnership with the Temple University publication.