I help people build relationships, connection, and community within the home and outside the home. I've been featured in the WSJ, Costco Connection, NPR, and PBS, and serve as a parent support group facilitator for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and a speaker for The Aspen Institute’s Weave Social Fabric Project.

 

In 2018, I launched Big Block Party Weekend in my hometown of Wilton, CT. Encouraged by the feedback and recognizing the need, I founded Block Party USA in 2023 as a free, simple, and actionable cure for our country’s loneliness, social isolation, divisiveness, and the youth mental health crisis.

 

My block party approach is featured as a powerful tool for positive change in Jennifer Wallace’s NYT best seller Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—And What We Can Do About It. To help end the phone-based childhood and restore the play-based childhood, Block Party USA was named an Aligned Organization of Jonathan Haidt’s NYT best seller The Anxious Generation. As part of Dr. Vivek H. Murthy’s "Recipes for Connection" initiative, the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General features Block Party USA as a resource that supports building social connection through gathering.

 

I was born in Germany, grew up in the U.S., and raised my children in Utah, London, and Zürich before settling in Connecticut in 2013. I’ve moved 28 times in my life. Moving helped me learn how to be vulnerable, initiate connection, build relationships, and create community.

 

People seek me out because what they’ve been trying doesn’t work and hasn’t improved life for their children, for themselves, for their families, and for their communities. I help you take actionable steps to change life in and outside your homes, and to achieve a life worth living – full of meaningful connection, support, relationships, well-being, and play.