Mainline Parent

Kazi Noor Is Proof You Can Build a Legacy Before Sunrise Most mornings, Kazi Noor is up at 5:30 am and at the gym before her toddler wakes, and her five-month-old needs to be fed. She comes home, and her husband Jay has two cups of coffee ready. One for her and one for himself. Then the two of them spend an hour mapping out the day before either of them gets to work.

Beyond the Mammogram: How Dr. Jenn Simmons Is Changing Breast Cancer Screening for Main Line Women Every year, millions of women schedule the same appointment and brace for the same wait: the mammogram, the callback, the days spent wondering. Dr. Jenn Simmons, a Main Line breast surgeon, spent her career inside that system. For her, the fear surrounding breast cancer screening was never something to accept. It was a problem to be solved.

Ashley Meyers and the Shine She Keeps Giving Away Eleven years ago, Ashley Meyers was a Berwyn mom driving her kids to school and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Today, she runs Main Line Fashionista, a Paoli boutique with a staff of stylists. Ashley also spent eight years on air for QVC, once competed for Mrs. America, and just launched a jewelry line named GLDN ash. Every version of her career, she says, has come back to the same skill: listening.

Megan Simmons Built a Place Where Every Family Finally Fits Megan Simmons never set out to run a business. She trained as an occupational therapy practitioner, and for years her work centered on helping individuals move through the world more easily. It was motherhood, paired with what she saw in her clinical practice, that pushed her toward something bigger.

Jennifer Starkie: Building a Business, One Family at a Time Jenn Shemtob Starkie taught her last class at Gladwyne Elementary School in the Lower Merion School District on March 13, 2020, a Friday that she assumed was just the start of a normal weekend. She had a student teacher beside her, a lesson plan for the following Monday, and no idea she’d never walk back into that classroom. Jenn had been tutoring nights, weekends, and summers for a full decade before she ever considered leaving teaching.

Kathrine Bright: Strong Enough to Finish Last After a sign in a rainy parking lot pulled her out of college coaching, Kathrine Bright built a space where postpartum moms, perimenopausal women, and burned-out former athletes could learn to trust their bodies again. Kathrine doesn’t remember feeling burned out the day she saw the sign. She remembers feeling tired. It was the kind of tiredness that comes from being exactly where you always dreamed of being and still knowing something has to give.

From the Classroom to the Pool Deck: Erica Kowal Is Building Confidence, One Family at a Time Erica Kowal will tell you she is a teacher at heart. She hasn’t stood in front of a classroom in years. Even so, the instincts she built there still show up every day on the pool deck: patience, empathy, and a belief that every kid deserves to be seen. Kowal is a mother of three, a former stay-at-home mom who decided she could not sit on the sidelines of her own frustration any longer.

Bri Stairiker: Room for One More Most mornings start the same way for Bri Stairiker: a walk with her dogs, coffee, out the door by 6:20 am. From there the day could take her anywhere: a school where she runs risk assessments and one-on-one counseling sessions, a virtual session with a foster mom three counties away, or her home office with its three walls of windows, where she watches the deer while she works.

Sarah DiSanto Is Growing More Than a Mental Health Practice On a typical fall weekday, Sarah DiSanto is busy. She gets four kids under five ready for school, sits down for a few meetings, and spends the remainder of her day answering emails, resolving insurance issues, and networking for her mental health practice, River Wards Wellness Collective.

“It’s the Main Line’s Best-Kept Secret”: A Parent’s Look at Main Line Classical Academy Tucked away on a wooded campus in Bryn Mawr, Main Line Classical Academy (MLCA) is a K–8 private school. Here, children as young as five study the greatest books, art, music and thinkers of Western civilization. They also gain a rigorous education in STEM and an appreciation of the natural world. We talked to MLCA parents Ameena Schelling and Jim Hao, whose oldest daughter is in second grade.