Being a parent is no walk in the park, but one local mom has come up with a way to make things a tad bit easier when it comes to adventuring with the kids.
Emily Berkel has called Squamish home for five years, and for almost four of those, she has been a mom to twins Zola and Theo.
After a few years of struggling to find things to do in the area, she decided she would devise an app that parents and caregivers could use to see all the activities and services available for families.
鈥淭he idea came about really a couple of years ago when I was looking for activities to do with my kids, and quite often, I would end up down a rabbit hole,鈥� Berkel said.
鈥淚t would often take me a long time and I would use Google or Facebook to try and find something for us to do, and sometimes I would get to the end point where I thought I'd found something that we want to do, and it would be for the wrong age group or the wrong date or the wrong time, or perhaps out of our budget at the time.鈥�
And so TogetherNest was born.
It is an app and web browser program that shows all the activities, events, camps, professional development days, before and after school options, playgrounds, pump tracks and home help options in Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton.
She said the goal for the program is to make it more efficient for parents and caregivers to find activities to do with their children.
鈥淚 just feel like not everybody knows that the town has so many amazing local businesses and services on offer for kids,鈥� she said.
How to use it?
When you first open the app, a page pops up with information telling you about TogetherNest and how to use it.
鈥淭he first page it takes you to is a map of Squamish, and what you can see are little icons which show you all the activities and their locations, and that's in the activities tab,鈥� Berkel said.
鈥淭he best thing to do from there is to hit the search button, and then there's a filter in there. The beauty of that is you can then choose what you want to see.
鈥淪o you can filter down and actually just get a much more suited list to your needs pulled up, which just takes away so much of the struggles and the pain points and makes it much more efficient.鈥�
The other tabs include events and camps, and pro-d days, which are both laid out in calendar format, and before and after school options.
The help at home tab includes meal prep and home cleaning services, and doulas.
鈥淚 feel like being a twin mum, sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day, and you might need some help,鈥� Berkel said on including a help at home option.
The app also allows community members and business owners to add activities and services in the area.
鈥淲hat I've done is I've made it so that anybody in the community can add their information in there, so each tab has a plus button in it where you can add in the information. You can show your business name, what ages it's appropriate for and whether it's free or whether it's paid,鈥� she said.
Berkel said the community response since she launched the app in March has been 鈥渞eally positive.鈥�
鈥淚've had a lot of people just say this is so necessary in the community and that [they鈥檝e] already saved so much time from this,鈥� she said.
鈥淎 couple of people have said, 鈥榃ow, I didn't know that existed, and I'm now booked into that,鈥� and that's amazing to hear. It's already highlighting things people didn't know they could do in the community.鈥�
There is also no cost to add an activity or service or to use the app.
鈥淎t the moment, it is free for anybody to add, and it is free for anybody to use it. I really want those two things to never have a cost barrier on them,鈥� Berkel said.
Visit the to find out more information and as well as the link to download the app.
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