Single MOMM Doubles Down

The family-focused nonprofit eyes a new headquarters and expansions in services for 2025 and beyond

By Kailyn Groves | March 15, 2025

This article is written by Kailyn Groves, a student at Traverse City Central High School.

Back in 2012, my family faced a major change that would create a ripple effect throughout my life. When my little brother and I were forced to move to Michigan with our mother, Jodi McCailb, we had to adapt to the new changes that altered our childhood.

In 2013, my mother heard about the Single Mom Ministry (Single MOMM) through her Bible study leader and decided to learn more about it. After she got involved, she would take us to events held at a local church. My brother and I would spend time with kids our own age while our mom was getting the support she needed.

My mom’s experience changed her perspective on the situation she was unexpectedly put into. “If it weren’t for Single MOMM, my faith, and the support I built around me with other single moms, I’m not sure I would’ve thrived like I did,” McCalib says.

Triple the Work

Single MOMM was born out of the hardships of its founder, Jennifer Finnegan Pool, shortly after she became a single mother herself.

“I had become a single mom when my kids were one and three, [which made] transitioning from a two-parent family structure to becoming a single parent [difficult],” she recalls.

TCAPS Indigenous Education Coordinator Christine Willow, a single mother for 11 years and Single MOMM member, wishes “…people understood that when you’re doing parenting on your own… it is actually tripling it.”

Besides the family dynamic changing, Finnegan Pool faced financial challenges, difficulty balancing work and motherhood, and lack of community support. Because of these obstacles, she recognized there was a great need and desire for a supportive community in the Traverse City area, which brought her to the creation of Single MOMM.

“It [started with] a group of women in the community that really felt this need that we need to just start something where single moms could help other single moms rise up,” Finnegan Pool says.

Established in 2008 as a mom-to-mom experience, Single MOMM’s main focus is to provide personal support and create healthy independence for single mothers who are struggling to raise their children on their own.

“We pursue helping women thrive for the long haul,” states Finnegan Pool, “allowing them to gain that confidence and then really run after what it is that is good for their family.”

Putting Moms First

Today, Single MOMM has several core programs for its clientele.

There’s Mentorship 360, offering peer-to-peer support for “parenting, finances, practical, emotional, and spiritual needs,” per their website. There are classes and courses focused on everything from personal resilience to “budgets and finances, parenting topics, spiritual matters, insurance, healthy menu planning, legal matters, and self-empowerment.”

They also support moms with the No More Crazy Process, a legal organizational tool designed for women going through a contested custody dispute or divorce, and the A.R.R.I.S.E. program, which helps single moms and their kids with secure housing.

“This organization is impacting the next generation because when we have healthy parents, we have healthier kids,” Finnegan Pool says.

From childcare to office work, community volunteers are essential to the organization’s stability. Having a consistent, supportive circle to reach out to even in difficult times is crucial to the growth of the families served.

“[Single MOMM] helped me know that I was not alone,” Willow explains, “and that other moms were also out there struggling, [which] provided me a community of people who fully understood my struggles, [as well as] those different aspects of navigating life as a single mom with multiple kids.”

Room to Grow

What began as a small, grassroots movement in Traverse City has grown. The organization is now a nonprofit, with a board of directors from the local community and subcommittees focused on emergent needs. Single MOMM now has a presence in Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Missaukee, and Wexford counties. Their goal is to be accessible to the whole state of Michigan in the next 10 years.

Despite all the big, exciting changes, Single MOMM, like any other nonprofit organization, has its challenges.

“Every penny that we give and engage single moms with comes directly from our communities. We do not receive state or federal funding,” Finnegan Pool explains.

This ultimately puts the community’s donations in the driver’s seat. “The most vulnerable populations in any place in the United States get impacted the hardest, and so we sometimes find ourselves ebbing and flowing along with the economy and the way things transpire,” she notes.

On the positive side, all that growth has meant that Single MOMM has had to look for a new home. After years in a building near the Cherryland Center, the organization is working on renovations in a 4,600-square-foot facility on E. Eighth Street in Traverse City. The new space will house their headquarters and Single MOMM Grand Traverse operations.

They plan to relocate in April to better serve the community and “expand our mentorship rooms, our classrooms, and our offices,” Finnegan Pool says.

To learn more, visit singlemomm.org.