We are kicking off our second anniversary with a series of interviews telling the re:Bloom story.
Brenden Rogers
4/18/2022
We are kicking off our second anniversary with a series of interviews telling the re:Bloom story. The history of re:Bloom is pretty straightforward and can be read here. But just by its nature, re:Bloom has had an impact on so many people in so many ways that no one’s re:Bloom story is exactly the same. So who better to start with than re:Bloom Founder and President, Abbey Mui.
“My mom is the owner of a childcare center which lost over 50% of its students during mandatory statewide shutdowns related to COVID-19. Being a smart woman, my mom knew that once they reopened she had to market her center. She hung up flyers in local pizza parlors and put up lawn signs on main roads. However, the world as we knew it had changed. More and more families were working from home and opting for delivery instead of venturing out, rendering her methods ineffective.
“That’s when she turned to me for help. The childcare center previously had a web presence but it was last updated in 2009. Because the website required programming knowledge, it made it incredibly difficult for my mom to update it on her own. She had lost contact with the original webmaster and it would cost thousands of dollars to find a new web agency to remake the website. She understood the importance of a digital presence, especially since the pandemic fast-tracked the need for one, but she didn’t know where to begin…
“I dedicated over 60 hours to fully understanding the business needs, project budget, and my mom’s technical abilities before remaking the website on a modern and intuitive platform with functionality that aligned with and supported her current and future goals."
“However, I ended up spending most of my efforts worrying about how my mom would be able to update the website herself. Neither of us wanted her to be in the same position she was in a few years later; stuck with an outdated website she didn’t know how to update. I ended up spending an additional 20 hours focusing on a future strategy including ‘how-to’ guides and next steps that would ultimately put my mom in control of her own website.
“During this process, I realized my mom wasn’t alone. Her children’s center was not the only small business struggling to pivot their business and marketing online. In fact, there were many others like her who struggled with this even prior to COVID-19. The pandemic just further exacerbated the digital gap between larger corporations with vast resources and small businesses in our communities who just needed some guidance. There was a real opportunity to help my community.
“In April 2020, I founded re:Bloom, a non-profit digital web agency whose mission is to make web services accessible, affordable, and sustainable. We emphasize working with traditionally underserved small business communities, such as women & minority-owned, because it reminds us of our roots. We also place an emphasis on training and future plans because throughout my time, I realized how irresponsible it was to create a tech solution for organizations without teaching them how to use and maintain it.”
Stay tuned as we continue to tell the re:Bloom story through the experiences of its volunteers, clients, donors, and more.