How Two Foster Moms Built a Nonprofit to Keep Families Together: The Moms Connect Dubuque Story

I'll pull back the curtain a little: I walked into this interview with my questions prepped, sent, and tidy. Then Kristina Heinzen and Gina Martin answered the very first one and the whole conversation went somewhere else entirely. (The good kind of somewhere else.)

Kristina and Gina met in foster parent licensing classes in 2019. They went in believing they'd be the ones rescuing kids from hard situations.

What they found instead were moms who loved their kids fiercely and had nobody. No support system. No steady people. So they did something that really shouldn't be revolutionary...they sat down with moms who had lived it and asked what would have made a difference.

The answer was relationships. That conversation (and some tacos) became Moms Connect Dubuque, now a 501(c)(3) walking alongside moms as they navigate systems, access resources, and build the skills to care for themselves and their families.

Fair warning: we go deep quick in this one. There are tears. There's talk of trauma, addiction, and the foster care system. Listen all the way through, because as Gina and Kristina will tell you, hearing someone's story is where empathy starts.

What You'll Hear

• How fostering unraveled everything Kristina and Gina thought they knew about parents in the system

• The "I'm too late" moment that became Gina's catalyst for change

• Why Kristina came to see the mom of the boys in her care as those very same children, ten years earlier

• The May 2023 conversation with two moms that shaped everything Moms Connect does

• Why proving you deserve help, one transaction at a time, keeps moms stuck (and what a warm handoff looks like instead)

• Inside a Moms Connect gathering: childcare, a shared meal, a donated party bus, and a new curriculum on survival responses

• The employment program launching this fall: a cleaning business paired with an education track through NICC and Iowa Works

• How "let's meet with some moms, let's have tacos" turned into a nonprofit with a board, partners, and two co-executive directors

• What Kristina and Gina have found about themselves: how much they don't know, and the power of receiving

Resources and Links Mentioned

• Dignified Christmas Market

• Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC)

• Iowa Works

• Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque (and catch Ep. 258 with Josie Manternach of CFGD)

• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Connect with Kristina and Gina

• Website: momsconnectdbq.org

• Facebook: Moms Connect Dubuque

Listen and Subscribe

• Follow the show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5YACTbRulN4NooX32NgzgV

• Follow the show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-found-podcast-with-molly-knuth/id1530616432

If this conversation cracked something open for you, send it to one person who would get it. And if you're anywhere near Dubuque, the Dignified Christmas Market could use your hands (and your gift drive) this December.