Help Rebirth Hatch Community Through Love's Pathway

The Village Is Coming Back. Help Us Build It.

Our Goal: $25,000

Every dollar goes directly into launching programming this fall — training doulas, feeding families, building the village back from the ground up.

The Story

Between 2012 and 2015, Kat Whipple spent three years listening. She interviewed over 100 nonprofits and over 100 Transitional Age Youth parents across the Bay Area to understand what was actually missing for young parents under 25 — many of whom had transitioned out of foster care, many of whom were LGBTQAI+ youth navigating parenthood without the support structures most families take for granted.

What she heard was consistent: these young parents didn't need another referral. They needed a village.

In 2015, Kat and Allison Stanton co-founded Hatch Community in Oakland, CA — a nonprofit designed from the ground up to build that village. Hatch trained young parents as certified doulas and community health workers, turning the people who most needed support into the people best equipped to provide it. Across every program, "doula" meant something broader than the birthing room — it meant accompaniment. Someone who walks with you because they've walked it themselves.

In just four years, Hatch did a lot:

The model worked. The village was real. And in 2020, Hatch closed.

But the work never stopped.

The Spark

Shayanna Love graduated from Hatch's 2017 doula training program. When Hatch closed, she didn't stop. She collaborated with other graduates and mentors to keep serving families referred by Kat and Hatch. She kept building relationships. And then she founded Love's Pathway — a Bay Area nonprofit dedicated to empowering foster and formerly incarcerated adolescents who are expecting or parenting.

Shayanna didn't just graduate from Hatch. She became its continuing spark. She understands this work because she has navigated love's pathway from her own life, through Hatch and now beyond — each experience informing how to better serve those around her.

Now Shayanna and Kat are partnering to rebirth what Hatch started — with Love's Pathway as the living legacy organization leading the way.

What We're Building

This fall, we are launching two programs:

Birth & Postpartum Doula Training Program — our signature nine-month program, training young people under 25 as certified birth doulas, postpartum doulas, nurturing touch doulas, and community health workers. Four certifications. Providing support to 3-5 families and community members with mentorship. One community. Participants leave not just with workforce skills but with building a village for themselves and the families they serve - that holds them while they grow — and that they help hold in return.

Community Health Worker Program — the evolution of Hatch's street doula program. Same DNA — meeting people where they are, walking alongside them, bringing the village to the places where there is no village. Now with a community health worker certification that extends the reach beyond birth into every dimension of family well-being. Onto streets. Inside the systems that were never designed for the people falling through them.

We train young people to support other young people. That has always been the model. That will always be the model.

We are building strategic hubs of support across at least Alameda County, Contra Costa County, and San Francisco County — with plans to expand as the village grows.

Who This Serves

Young parents under 25 — many of whom have aged out of the foster care system. Young people who grew up without the family networks most of us take for granted. Who don't have someone to call at 2am when the baby won't stop crying. LGBTQAI+ youth navigating parenthood without the support structures that hetero-normative families have access to. Formerly incarcerated young people rebuilding their lives while raising the next generation.

These young parents don't need someone to save them. They need what every parent needs — a village. People who show up. People who know your name. People whose nervous systems help regulate yours when you can't do it yourself.

For these families, the village has to be built from scratch — with intention, with design, with the understanding that what they've been through requires a community that is trauma-informed to its core.

That's what your donation builds.

What Makes Hatch Different

The people closest to the gap fill it. We train young people from within the community as certified practitioners. We all build intentional community, together. There is on-going mentorship. The people who most need support receive it and also can become the people providing it.

The whole person is welcome. Every intersection of identity — race, culture, age, gender, sexual orientation, history, trauma, joy, grief, strength. The village doesn't ask anyone to leave pieces of themselves outside. When all parts are present, the structure has real integrity.

Nervous system care is the infrastructure. The fabric of this organization is trauma-informed to its core — not as a buzzword but as an operating system. We face vicarious trauma head-on. We build programming that doesn't just teach skills but regulates the nervous systems of everyone in the room. This is what professionals at our recent partner gathering were most excited about — and what makes Hatch unlike any other training program in the Bay Area.

Community grows together. This is not a provider-client relationship. The doulas who train become the support for the next generation of families. The families become the community that holds the next round of doulas. Everyone is a resource for someone else.

Where the Money Goes

$25,000 launches us into programming this fall while other funding finds its way. Every dollar goes directly into rebuilding the village:

Program Operations — curriculum materials, training supplies, certification fees, meeting space, and the infrastructure to run two programs simultaneously starting this Fall

Doula Stipends — paying our peer doulas so that economic opportunity remains at the heart of this model, just as it always has been

Community Gatherings — weekly meetings with meals for families and craft activities for kids, because breaking bread together is how we build community, not an afterthought

Outreach & Recruitment — reaching the young parents who need this most, in the communities where the village needs to show up

What We've Already Proven

This isn't a new idea looking for validation. Hatch already proved the model works:

122 doulas trained. 270+ families served. 500+ community members reached. Graduates in nursing programs, midwifery apprenticeships, social work, Planned Parenthood, and early childhood careers. All on an average budget of $65,000 per year from primarily youth development funders.

When Hatch closed in 2020, the doulas kept working. The relationships held. The village reorganized. And now it's coming back — stronger, with Love's Pathway carrying it forward, and with everything we learned the first time built into the foundation.

The seeds Hatch planted are still growing. Love's Pathway is the bloom. Your donation helps the bloom become the next seed.

Other Ways to Help

Can't donate right now? Here's how you can still make a difference:

Share this page. Put it on social media. Text it to five people. Email it to your organization. If Hatch ever touched your world — this is how you help it touch more.

Refer participants. Know a young person under 25 who wants to work in the birth world, care work, social work, or nursing? Send them to us.

Refer clients. Know pregnant or parenting young people under 25 who could use doula support? Connect us.

Volunteer. We need childcare help during meetings, meal preparation, craft activities for kids, and people with skills they love using. Tell us what you bring and we'll find where it fits.

Partner with us. If your organization serves young families, foster youth, or system-impacted communities — we want to build with you.

Reach out: Visit The Hatch Community and Love's Pathway

"When something is built intentionally — built from the community, by the community, in service of something true — it doesn't end. It graduates."

Help us graduate into what comes next.