Jennifer Auer shares how she became the mom who shares fun things to do in New Jersey!

This week’s Featured Mama of the Week is Jennifer Auer, the owner and blogger behind Jersey Family Fun and Fairytale Entertainment, LLC.  Jenn is the mom to three boys, ages 6.5, 5, and 2.5 who love to read, pretend, and eat!  They enjoy taking advantage of their local library’s programs, exploring their neighborhood, and being out in nature at parks.

Jenn’s website, Jersey Family Fun, a site dedicated to providing ideas for fun things to do in Jersey, came to be in a rather creative way.  She wasn’t always a blogger and shared the following when asked about how she started her sites:

“I’ve always been involved in volunteer work and community service. That followed me after college. I went to Bryant University for Entrepreneurship. I did a short stint after college at Enterprise Rent A Car as a management trainee and learned that wasn’t a life for me.  I was not made out to dress up in suits, wash cars, and try to convince people to buy the extra insurance.

From there I went on to do public relations and volunteer management at a variety of nonprofits. When the turnover and politics got to be too much, I turned my passion for working with families into a career in teaching.  Then, three wonderful boys came along and the logistics of working out of the home got difficult. Plus, I wanted to be with my children.

In 2009, through a friend of a friend I was presented the option to buy what was then Elizabeth Norton’s party business, Fitness Playhouse.  I renamed it Fairytale Entertainment. From there we added superheroes and other children’s characters to our cast of princesses. It’s grown from there. Now we travel throughout Southern New Jersey to children’s birthday parties making make-believe come alive with characters, face-painting, and theme-based parties. It’s been a great opportunity to do work I love while being home with my children.

During this same time, I was also discovering great family-friendly events in our community. I wanted to share that information with others. I struggled for a long time with the best way to do that.  I started out blogging for Elizabeth at Professor of Play, but soon after launched my own site, Jersey Family Fun. I love being able to help families in New Jersey and those visiting New Jersey find family-friendly attractions to visit, restaurants to eat, hotels to stay at. It’s very rewarding to discover a secret treasure in New Jersey and then be able to share that with others.”

Jennifer and Karen Hudson Sweitzer recently decided to launch a new site together focusing upon Atlantic City, called Family Friendly AC. Following the same model as Jersey Family Fun, they intend to showcase Atlantic City in the same way in order to help families discover what they can do in Atlantic City.

When asked about her use of social media, Jenn responded, “I use Social Media daily. Both Facebook and Twitter have their advantages and have helped Jersey Family Fun grow. Twitter has allowed me to form partnerships with businesses I never thought I would be talking with. One of our first giveaways for Sesame Place tickets was the result of a Twitter conversation. Everyday new opportunities open for us because of someone we are talking to on Twitter. Facebook has its advantages too, especially with the new changes. It really allows us to talk with our readers.  It opens up the door for communication and the fans love it. It’s great to log on and see our fan count keep growing because our readers enjoy what they are seeing and find value in the information we are sharing.”

Since writing and blogging about events in NJ doesn’t keep Jennifer busy enough, she also spends time tutoring and running her party business on the weekends, Fairytale Entertainment.  The majority of her work is done at home, but those two jobs take her outside the home as well.  While her work is very demanding, she still enjoys it, as it is also flexible and rewarding.  Childcare presents some dilemmas, but Jennifer is able to deal with that by working at night and on weekends when her husband is around to care for their children.  This doesn’t always work well when she has to deal with businesses that keep traditional 9-5 hours, but she is able to make it work.  (But when Does she sleep??)

Parenting presents its own challenges.  For Jenn, the hardest part of being a parent is a balance between all the roles she has along with the responsibilities of parenting.  While she hasn’t discovered the perfect answer yet, she works on learning from other parents and not sleeping enough so she can get everything done!

Teaching her children about being socially responsible is important to Jenn.  She said, “I want my children to be involved in their communities. I want them to value the opportunities they have and I want them to give back, volunteer. When I look for volunteer opportunities now, I look for ones they can be involved with. Ones they can connect to and understand. I think family volunteer opportunities are so important if we are going to help our children develop the right values. They can’t learn from us unless they are involved in it themselves. It’s not enough for them to watch. They must be doing. Our Soles4Souls shoe drive was a big deal for us. When we started I explained how some children don’t have shoes. We talked about how it would be to go a few hours with shoes and could they imagine not having any shoes at all or not being able to go to school because they didn’t have shoes. As we collected shoes from their collection and their friends, they began to see how each person could make a difference and what those little differences could add up to.”

Thank you Jennifer for sharing a bit of your life and work with Mama’s Little Helper’s readers!

Jennifer Auer of Jersey Family Fun

If you know a mom you would like to see featured here, send an email to Diane@mamaslittlehelper.org.