A History of Community Responsiveness

Mothers’ Club Family Learning Center was founded in 1961 by Mara Moser, a Quaker who reached out to a few of the loneliest and most overwhelmed mothers in the community, bringing them into a network of friendship and mutual support. Mothers would take turns caring for each other’s children so that the other parents would have time together without distraction. But out of the desire for parents to better their lives, and the lives of their children, came the realization that their children needed more than “babysitting” – they needed education. And mothers needed education, too. More importantly, they wanted to learn how to be better parents.

Enter Taka Nomura in 1962, head teacher from Pacific Oaks Children’s School, who brought her expertise in developmentally appropriate practices for educating young children. She established the guiding principle on which our children’s program is based: to provide a safe and nurturing environment that promotes the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development of young children while responding to the needs of families.

At the same time, to meet the needs of mothers, a partnership with Pasadena City College’s parent education department was established – a partnership that continues today. Their model for interactive parent education increases the parenting skills needed to promote healthy development in children; promotes positive family relationships, self-esteem and self-confidence in parents; and increases the skills parents need to support their children’s early learning.

Later, in 1970, a co-operative nursery school was established at Mothers’ Club to bring together mothers from diverse socio-economic backgrounds to share parenting classes and social activities; laying the foundation for a deeply held Mothers’ Club value - each of us has something to learn, and each of us has something to give. It was also at this time that mothers began assisting in the children’s program on a weekly basis, establishing another key component of our program.

Research repeatedly points to the fact that the more involved a parent is in their child’s education early on, the more likely it is that the child will be successful in school. Additionally, the academic success of a parent is the best predictor of a child’s future success in school. So in the 1990’s, as immigrant population soared in northwest Pasadena and poverty and illiteracy levels increased dramatically, Mothers’ Club added an adult literacy component to its services, once again addressing the needs of our community’s changing population.

@ 2006 Mothers' Club Family Learning Center
526 East Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91104
Office: (626) 792-2687 Fax: (626) 793-1832