For some, back to school comes as a stressful time this year. With kids being at home for at least part of the school week, parents are being forced to choose between work and staying home to help kids with online schooling.

Two moms in our area struggled in the spring and don’t know what to expect this school year.

“I am exhausted and am still tired from spring school, Amanda Burlingham, founder of Erie City Moms and mother of 4 says.

She has an at-home job as a consultant and had to cut back on her clients in the spring because the needs of her kids outweighed the needs of her clients. She still has not returned to work and says she does not really know what to expect.

She is not alone. Another mom, Alondra Moffett, a mother of two kids is a single mom who will start a new job with the Government on Tuesday, the same day her daughter starts school online.

“My daughter starts at Collegiate Academy the same day I start the job so I won’t even be present with her while she is having to tackle that first day of school, so that’s definitely one of those things that is still kind of heavy for me,” Moffett says.

Her son is 4 years old and will be going to daycare while she starts her new job. She is concerned for him in a different way.

“Will he wear his mask all day, will they practice social distancing, is it even safe for him to go back to daycare,” are all questions that she cannot get out of her head.

She says being a single mom means being the sole provider as well as the emotional provider for her children.

Burlingham also struggled in the spring.

“It was really trying,” she says. “It was very difficult and we had a lot of emotions in my house.”

She says of her four kids, some of them deal with anxiety and ADHD.

Burlingham started the group called Erie City Moms four years ago. The average meeting has about 60 guests and the Facebook group consists of 1,000 members. She understands the pandemic is a time when moms may need more support than normal.

“If we are going through the struggles that we are with the skill-set and support that we have, a lot of the moms we have that are part of Erie City Moms and across the community are dealing with much broader issues like anxiety and depression,” she says.

That is why Erie City Moms decided to extend a helping hand during the pandemic to support some of these moms.

“One mom’s hard is different from the next mom’s hard,” Moffett says.

Both women explained that all moms experience different hardships, and for Moffett it is trying to provide for her children completely alone. Others may face a lack of safety and security keeping their kids safe or putting food on the table.

Throughout the pandemic, Erie City Moms held food pantry’s to support the struggling parents. They also created more programming and got together when they could once some of the restrictions lifted. They gave some of these moms Easter presents and Mother’s Day gifts to show support.

“We wanted to make them feel special and realize they are equipped for situations like this one,” Burlingham says.

Erie City Moms is also collaborating with Macaroni Kid to sponsor a raffle for two prize packages of work from home items. The contest can be completed at bit.ly/ErieStartSmart and winners will be chosen at random and announced on September 5.