For Immediate Release: Launching this Month, Single Parent Magazine and Single Parent Night Out

Portland single moms Clare Bean and Morgan Siler are launching a print magazine this month called Single Parent. Just a bit over one year after they launched their successful online community IHeartSingleParents.com; which has been awarded one of the ‘Best Website for Divorced Parents and Separated Families’ by On Teens Today and featured on KOIN News 6, The Oregonian, Fox’s Mike and Juliet Show, and numerous prominent blog sites, Clare and Morgan are launching a print magazine and a series of events called Single Parent Night Out.

This all started with two young, dynamic Portland women who found themselves in the role of single Mom. At first it was lonely and they were both chaffing at the public’s stereotypical view of single parents. Then they met each other and realized that knowing another single parent helped. So, they decided to find a way to create a positive, healthy community of other single parents and see what they could do to change the way society views single parents. After all, there are nearly 14 million single parents in this country (and about 222,684 of them live right here in Portland), the vast majority of whom are doing a great job of providing for their children and creating a good life for their families. Today, the online community IHeartSingleParents.com is thriving and has a number of prominent single parent members, including:

• Dr. Leah Klungness, speaker and co-author of The Complete Single Mother
• Barbara Winter, speaker and author of Making a Living Without a Job
• Mari Gallion, author of The Single Mother’s Guide to a Happy Pregnancy
• Tommy Taylore, author of Single Parent Survival Guide
• Michael Shimberg, author of The Complete Single Father
• R.J. Jamarillo from SingleDad.com
• Simon Blackwell of HelpforDaddy.com

Single Parent magazine launching this month and includes a column by Dr. Leah Klungness and feature articles by prominent single parent writers such as Alaina Sheer from Ms. Single Mama, and Melissa Chapman, Family Editor at Single Minded Women. AND – with the exception of the owner of their publishing company, Clare and Morgan have assembled an all single-parent team to produce, write, and promote the magazine. Single Parent Night Out events are launching this month in Portland at the Barracuda, sponsored by Entercom (105.1 The BUZZ), DeKuyper, and Chanel Shavers, RE/MAX Equity Group, Inc, Broker. When polled, 91% of the IHeartSingleParents.com community said they would like to have monthly sponsored events so Clare and Morgan, along with SK2R Publishing, organized a monthly night out in Portland. They are planning to start launching in other cities later this year and this summer will have family events for the single parent community. Clare and Morgan are dedicated Moms, dynamic businesswomen, fun-spirited Portlanders, and creating a single parent revolution. I think they would make a great story for AM Northwest. If you’d like to set something up, please call Lura Frazey, Public Relations at 503-914-5810.
Download the Event Flyer:

iHeart Launches Magazine and Event This Month!

I Heart Single Parents is ready to launch the magazine, Single Parent and the Single Parent Night Out!  Get ready for a night to remember, every month! Beginning January 23th, 2009, single parents now have a night to call their own! Single Parent Night Out is the third Friday of the month from now on.

Launching in Portland, OR, Single Parent Night Out promises to be a night of entertainment galore.  The first event also marks the launch of the magazine, Single Parent, the first print magazine dedicated to Single Parents living their “Happily Ever Now.”

Click to get $5 off the ticket price for this event not to be missed!

Don’t live near Portland and can’t attend? Don’t worry, Single Parent Night Out intends to make it’s way across the country to a city near you! Stay tuned. In the meantime, get your subscription to find out when the event is coming to you and much more!

Download the event flyer:

iHeart and Mercy Corps Partner

The international organization, Mercy Corps, and i Heart Single Parents have teamed up to further each other’s goals of humanitarian efforts.

In addition to providing a place for support and camaraderie online, the founders of iHeartSingleParents.com believe in giving back. One way for single parents to get out of a victim mentality is to look outside their lives at the world and take time to learn about issues around the world. To that end, they have decided to share Mercy Corps programs to their community and feature a different one each month. The parents on iHeartSingleParents.com have the option to give money to help support the community, and half of all the funds will go to the Mercy Corps program featured at that time.

I Heart Single Parents is featured on the Mercy Corps website, located here.

Mercy Corps is a non-profit organization that exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.

Mercy Corps works amid disasters, conflicts, chronic poverty and instability to unleash the potential of people who can win against nearly impossible odds. Since 1979, Mercy Corps has provided $1.5 billion in assistance to people in 106 nations. Supported by headquarters offices in North America and Europe, the agency’s unified global programs employ 3,500 staff worldwide and reach nearly 16.4 million people in more than 35 countries.

For more information go to their website at http://mercycorps.org/aboutus/overview.

Awarded ‘Best Website’ for Divorced Parents and Separated Families

iHeartSingleParents was proud to be selected as one of the best websites for divorced parents and separated families on Vanessa Van Petten’s On Teens Today.

Vanessa Van Petten’s is a parent-teen relationship expert and the author of the book, You’re Grounded, How to Stop Fighting and Make the Teenage Years Easier, (having written the book when she was just a teen herself).

Blogs, books, websites, podcasts and other resources for Divorced parents and families  were selected and reviewed by teen reviewers who come from divorced families.

iHeartSingleParents was listed number one in the website category.

iHeart Team of Single Moms on local KOIN News 6

On 8/21/08 Clare Bean and Morgan Siler of i Heart Single Parents, the online community for single parents, were featured on the Portland area KOIN news 6. Here is the YouTube video of the news segment:

Click here to go to Koin’s website and read the story

The Oregonian’s SW Edition Article on i Heart Single Parents

The Oregonian, Oregon’s largest newspaper featured the article, Single Parents Take Online Community to Heart. It was in the SW Edition of the Oregonian, which gives a more “close up” look at news in the community. Holly Goodman, who also writes for First Wives World, submitted the article to the Oregonian. The article came out on Thursday, August 14th, 2008.

“Tired of the lack of a support network, two local moms made their own

Thursday, August 14, 2008

HOLLY GOODMAN

Special to The Oregonian

Like many other moms-to-be, Morgan Siler and Clare Bean devoured every pregnancy guide they could get.”…read the full article on the Oregonian’s website, Oregonlive.com, here.

Part 2 and 3 of First Wives World Article Are Up!

As the follow up to the last post, the website firstwivesworld.com has added part 2 and part 3 of the 3 part series article entitled Single Mom Entrepreneurs – Making Your Life Your Work, by Holly Carpenter.

Part 2 can be found here…When Clare Bean and Morgan Siler, single mothers in Portland, Oregon, were introduced by a mutual friend last year, their quick connection shattered the isolation of mothering alone.

Part 3 can be found here…Something shifted for Clare Bean when she met her fellow single mom, Morgan Siler. There were the obvious parallels in their lives. Both were late 20-something single moms. Both had a son around a year old. Both lived in suburban Portland in neighboring Westside communities.

Another element of note, the firstwivesworld.com site has featured the story twice in their rotating images on their home page.  See the image below:

The First Wives World, a spin off of the movie The First Wives Club, has been featured in the NY Times and on the Mike and Juliet Morning show, to name a few.  See their Press page for more information.

Single Mom Entrepreneurs – Making Your Life Your Work – First Wives World Story

IHeartSingleParents.com’s founders are being featured in a three part series article on FirstWivesWorld.com.  Click here to read the article. Written by Holly Carpenter, a single mom and a member on iHeartSingleParents.com, the article tells the history of how the now 6 month old site came to exist, by two single moms in Portland, OR.

“If there’s a place in the United States where families are not expected to conform to the nuclear ideal, it’s Portland, Oregon. There are “Keep Portland Weird” stickers pasted on cars all over town.

Try opening a Wal-Mart here and you’d better be ready to battle.

Walk into the country’s largest independent bookstore, Powell’s City of Books, and along with any title you can imagine, you can grab a “People’s Republic of Portland” T-shirt.” Read more

i Heart Single Parents on UrbanMamas.com Blog

The Portland Based blog, urbanMamas featured i Heart Single Parents in a blog on July 15th, 2008.  urbanMamas is a community, online and in person…to share support, camaraderie, griefs and joys. Currently they reach 40,000 unique visitors monthly, and the community continues to grow.

Here is their blog post:

I Heart Single Parents: Local Social Networking

We’ve talked here on uM about Facebooking. And honestly, when I saw that post way back in September 2007 I wasn’t quite sure what Facebook really was.  So embarrassing!  We’ve also shared the unique challenges of single parenting and found ways to connect with others in the same shoes.

So it all came together when we recently met the founder of an excellent (and local!  isn’t everyone into local these days?) social networking site for single parents called I Heart Single Parents.  Facebook meets single parents – but better.

The founders describe it as ‘an online community for single parents to meet, chat and find support.’  It has a decidedly upbeat attitude, an “I’m here and I’m gonna love it” approach.  Have you checked it out?  If you visit, let us know what you think.

Check it out on their site here.

i Heart Single Parents in the Oregonian

Oregon Live, the Oregonian’s online newspaper featured the i Heart Single Parents social network and its creators, Morgan Siler and Clare Bean today in the Mom Beat

Journalist Helen Jung wrote the article, Single Parents Unite!
from the article:
When Morgan Siler and Clare Bean were pregnant, neither found many resources that offered much support to the single moms-to-be..So, after the two met through a mutual friend, they decided to start their own site.
Read the entire article here.