When it comes to the new Guelph web site www.guelphkidsguide.ca, necessity was indeed the mother of invention.
The site, started by three Guelph stay-at-home moms, is a one-stop shopping place for people looking for things to do with their kids in and around the Royal City.
Birthday parties, one-off P.A. day activities, summer camps and more can all be found on the web site.
"Me and two other stay-at-home moms met at a local program and we started hearing about other programs or events through other moms, but a lot of times we would miss out," said Erica Blunn, who started the web site with Agnieszka Mazurek-Pereira and Julia Drysdale.
Miss out or find out too late when an event was taking place.
"We thought it would be great if parents had one web site that they could come to and see what's going on that day, things on other days or things they had never heard of before."
The three women collect the information that goes up on the site. Drysdale's husband Adrian supplies the web design and technical element.
"We wanted to eliminate the stress of planning and how time consuming looking for things is, I mean who wants to spend hours at night searching around for things to do? We bring it all to one site," Blunn said.
The site officially launched in January. Traffic has been around 100 people a day, up to 500 when there's a P.A. day at school or on special occasions like Family Day.
Right now the women do all the footwork gathering information for the site. They also ask organizations and businesses to send information to them.
Blunn expects things to get very busy as the summer approaches.
The site is free and they hope to sell advertising eventually.
"It will always remain free for parents. We just want them to have a really good resource," Blunn said.
You can search using various filters, including date, price, free or not, age group and category.
There are also separate places to look at places that host birthday parties and for summer camps.
The site is on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pintrest and sends out a monthly newsletter.
For more information go to www.guelphkidsguide.ca.
