Heather Hopkins is the visionary behind My New Red Shoes [1], an inspired non-profit organization recently featured on Good Morning America that provides brand new clothing and shoes to homeless and low-income kids for the first day of school. She does everything from public speaking to writing press releases to recruiting interns to help get the work done. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her 3 year old daughter Annie.
How many hours a week do you work?
I don't know. Between the quick emails while Annie is coloring to the big chunks of time while she's at preschool, I would guess around 20 hours a week.
Do you work exclusively in the office, exclusively from home or some combination?
My home is my office, and this is a secret our warehouse is my garage.
Describe your childcare set up.
I do most of my "deskwork" while my daughter is in preschool three times a week. I save meetings and speaking engagements for the babysitter time I have four hours twice a week. If only I could only get my babysitter to arrive on time, I wouldn't always have to worry about getting to those meetings in a timely manner.
Did your mom work? What did she do?
My mother was a stay-at-home mom, and a fantastic one, at that. When I was about four years old, I said, "Mommy, I don't know whether I want to be like you or go to work." I have always respected what she did and felt fulfilled staying home with my daughter before I started My New Red Shoes [2]. I know it sounds impossible, but I feel like I have almost perfected the stay-at-home working mother role (Well, at least until my little princess spends the duration of my conference call screaming, that is).
Do you travel for your job? How often? Do you try to avoid it when you can or do you consider it the great escape?
My job doesn't generally call for travel, but My New Red Shoes was recently featured on Good Morning America and traveling to New York for the live interview was the first time I had been away from my daughter. It was truly a great escape (a full night's sleep, a calm adult dinner out). Still, I couldn't wait to kiss those soft little cheeks as soon as I got home.
Describe your worst working mom moment.
Sitting in the corner of a dark hotel room, whispering to a newspaper reporter about My New Red Shoes [3] for a story that was running that week, while my two-year old was taking a nap on the other side of the (very small) room.
Do you ever take your kids to work? Do you think your kids are proud that you work? How do you know?
I took my daughter with me once to teach a Girl Scout troop about homelessness as part of our Kids Helping Kids program. When I stood up and was introduced as "Mrs. Hopkins, the teacher from My New Red Shoes," Annie's eyes got very round. She couldn't believe these big fourth-grade girls would actually want to listen to what I had to say.
What inspires you?
When my time has come, I hope to have made an impact on my community. At this stage in my life, that means distributing new school clothing to homeless children in the San Francisco Bay Area. Further down the road, I would like reach children on a more global scale.
If you were a superhero, what powers would you have?
I would love to be able to snap my fingers and magically transport from my desk to the front gate of my daughter's preschool. That would give me five more precious minutes to work.
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