May is for Mom’s Business, Too

Nine more days until our children acknowledge us or eight more days to get Mom a special gift. In any event, as this “Mother’s Day” rolls around it’s a time to celebrate motherly love and in PINK fashion, motherly business too.

Laura Metro has shifted her life’s focus, now crafting an entire career inspired by the tragic accident that almost killed her son. “You and your family and your loved ones, you’re never the same after an experience like this” says Metro, who was recently featured in Parents.

“When I looked into drowning statistics, there is no reason my son is alive,” she says. According to the CDC, about 10 people die every day from drowning. In fact, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death in ages one to 14, and the fifth leading cause for people of all ages.

Metro was at her father’s beach home, out running with the dogs, while her friends supervised her children at the community pool. She came back to find those same friends shrieking “run, run” and her daughter “wailing her arms and screaming I think Clay died, I think Clay died.” Calling the encounter “utter chaos,” she explains “we drop the dog and just run and see my six year old son lying on the ground blue and lifeless and my friend is doing CPR. He doesn’t know CPR; he’s just doing what he’s seen on TV.”

Today, Metro hosts CPR parties teaching moms to resuscitate their children through The C.L.A.Y. Foundation. She also founded “When In Need of Kindness (WINK!),” using a ‘one-for-one’ business model to donate bags of toiletries to Ronald McDonald House Family Rooms.

Amidst the horror of her son’s hospitalization, Metro recalls being flown to the closest ER and finally finding a moment of peace as she untied a pre-packaged bag of soap and showered at a Ronald McDonald House Family Room. “It was as though I’d been handed a bar of gold. I was finally able to wash off the day. I’ve never forgotten those little bags and what they symbolized…love and hope.”

‘One-for-one,’ is an idea Metro got from ‘Tom’s,’ who donates one pair of shoes in exchange for every pair of shoes that is purchased. “You are cutting into your margins” Metro says, explaining “There is a big difference between a social awareness company that is building a charitable mission into its business model, versus having a charity as an afterthought.”

Although she does her best to help others, Metro by no sense considers herself perfect. “I am not supermom: I do not get homework assignments in on time, I put too much on my plate, and I am often letting things slide into the cracks; ask anyone who knows me,” she laughs.

By Mica Kelmachter