They have names like “Confessions of a PTA Mom” and “Blissfully Domestic” and “June Cleaver Nirvana”, and they are the Mommy Bloggers of North Texas

By Hy Cotten

November 20, 2009

They have names like “Confessions of a PTA Mom” and “Blissfully Domestic” and “June Cleaver Nirvana”, and they are the Mommy Bloggers of North Texas.

The North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee and its service-learning partner Big Thought also hope the Mommy Bloggers will be ideal messengers for a magical 2010 initiative.

Dallas-based Big Thought is overseeing the Host Committee’s SLANT 45 project, which stands for “Service Learning Adventures in North Texas”. The 45 is for Super Bowl XLV, coming to North Texas, February 2011.

That 2011 game might seem far off in the distance to some, but the time is now for Big Thought to piece together perhaps the single most monumental artistic education endeavor in U.S. history.

Which brings us to the Mommy Bloggers. Big Thought is asking the Mommy Bloggers to get the word out, to help sign up 20,000 North Texas school children (primarily grades 3-5, but not exclusively) who will devote 45,000 hours creating their own artistic projects that can impact their respective communities.

Former Dallas Cowboy Daryl Johnston is chairing the Host Committee’s SLANT 45 Action Team. The 43rd President of the United States George W. and Mrs. Laura Bush are its Honorary Chairs. But the task is huge and help is needed at every level.

Of utmost importance right now is getting parents and children to go to the slant45.org website, read up and become aware. Official registration begins in January, but Big Thought wants children and their parents thinking big now.

“Moms are a critical voice today,” said Chris Orzechowski, Big Thought’s Director of Marketing. “They’re gatekeepers for all of the information that families discuss. The Mommy Bloggers are going to be a huge opportunity for us to get the word out for this program.

“Without their voice, we cease to be able to have the reach that we potentially can have moving forward to be able to really execute and deliver SLANT 45 into the communities and the neighborhoods.”

Holly Homer, a.k.a. “June Cleaver”, has more than 5,500 followers on Twitter. She also writes the personal blog “June Cleaver Nirvana” and heads up 60 local bloggers on www.burbmom.net.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Homer said. “I think it’s a way to get people involved that wouldn’t necessarily even have a clue how to get involved in the Super Bowl.

“If people can realize what it is, SLANT 45 is something a mom can do with her kids on a Sunday afternoon, if she plans ahead a little bit. And then they would have a little bit of ownership into that event when it comes around to Super Bowl time.”

Lea Ann Stundins’ “Mommy’s Wish List” is one of North Texas’ hottest Mommy Blogging sites. She has 3,700 blog subscribers, 1,400 Twitter followers and 1,000 Facebook fans.

Of SLANT 45, she said, “I think it could be a really neat way to get the Super Bowl experience down to the ‘everyman‘ — and the ‘every kid‘ — and get them involved in some way because it’s not an event hardly anyone gets to go to.

“If there’s a way to have that experience trickle down to everybody, to get them all excited, and at the same time build the community and arts, I’m all for that.”