New nonprofit for parents teams up with Conscious Discipline for workshop

What started as a monthly parenting newsletter known as Threads of Thought has transitioned into a new nonprofit dedicated to nurturing healthy relationships by promoting education, empathy and mutual understanding called Community Threads.

Community Threads was started by two local educators, Christina Holloway and Melisa Sweet. Holloway is the owner of Woody Creek Kids and Little Red Schoolhouse. At Woody Creek Kids, Holloway does everything from teaching to driving buses. Sweet has worked alongside Holloway at Woody Creek Kids since its start in 2016. Together, they are bringing their hard-won and well-researched knowledge on early childhood education into their new nonprofit.

“I think we need to make a place for children and educators in our community,” said Holloway. “We’re working with our next generation and these kids need more support, especially in the social emotional aspects.”

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The idea to form a nonprofit was born out of Sweet’s monthly newsletters, which weren’t the typical school newsletters. She spent time researching tips and tricks for parents to connect with their children and eventually, the monthly newsletter turned into a parent meeting.

“When it comes to children, we hope to have an impact when it comes to how people see children. Although children are appreciated in our culture, I personally believe they are quite misunderstood and underestimated by most adults,” said Sweet.

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After a successful parent meeting in November with many “aha moments,” as Holloway described it, they decided to look into forming a nonprofit to provide more services to the community.

“We started putting our heads together and came up with the idea. We loved the name (of Sweet’s newsletter) Threads of Thought, and from there the name transformed into Community Threads as we are wanting to reach our whole community,” said Holloway.

According to Sweet, Community Threads was born as a space for parents to share their child rearing experiences with each other and the vision grew from there. As educators, both Sweet and Holloway have an understanding of how isolating and stressful parenting can be, especially post-COVID and amid the many threats schools received lately.

“We hope that Community Threads can support families and teachers not only by offering educational opportunities such as our upcoming Conscious Discipline workshop, but also by providing a space where we can all come closer as a community,” said Sweet.

Their first event on April 5 is a Conscious Discipline workshop with Amy Speidel called “From Chaos to Calm.”

Conscious Discipline is an organization that works to empower parents with skills that create a safe, connected, problem-solving environment for families.

With the help of Kids First, Aspen Family Connections and The Aspen School District, parents and educators are invited to attend the workshop where they will learn about the different brain states and how regulating ourselves helps us teach children the tools they need for meaningful problem solving.

“We believe that healthy relationships are the foundation of a strong society, and we strive to nurture those relationships by promoting education, empathy and mutual understanding in our community,” said Sweet.

Community Threads is just getting up and running, and in the next few months they have leadership trainings for directors of local child-care centers and an art exhibition for children ages 0-5 in Paepke Park.

“Long-term, we want to dive into seeing what the community needs and wants,” Holloway said. “The more support we can give people the better.”

“Our dream at Community Threads is for everyone to see that children are valuable members of our society,” said Sweet.

To reach Audrey Ryan, email her at aryan@aspentimes.com.