Silver Lining Tea big lift for Doula

    Bonita Young, Doula program director, said the program has been scrambling for funds but is determined to continue. She points to the program’s success in promoting infant mental health and noted that the program will receive an award later this month from Michigan Association of Infant Mental Health at their annual meeting in Ann Arbor.

    “We still are looking for donations to keep the services going on into the next year,” said Young, who founded the Doula Teen Parent Program in 1977. “We’re looking for community support and funding and have written many grants.”

    The Doula program served 80 families last year in the Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Benzie, Kalkaska and Antrim counties. Sixty trained volunteers plus four staff infant mental health specialists provide a wide array of support for these young parents, who are mostly teenage mothers.

    A Doula links up with this young family for a three-year commitment, providing one-on-one support through pregnancy, birth and the crucial first years of parenting. Through regular meetings, often weekly, Doulas model positive parenting and relationship skills and also make sure the family can access any needed social, medical or educational resources.

    The Doula program also offers playgroups and a new baby pantry, which provides welcomed gifts and much-needed basics for the newborn.

    Seeing the positive impact the Doula program has made over the years brought Pat Lewallen, special programs director for Traverse City Area Public Schools, to the Silver Lining Tea.

    “We have about a dozen of our alternative ed high school students who are either young moms or pregnant,” said Lewallen, who also loaned teacups for the event. “The services the Doula program provides are really good and the concept is so non-judgmental.”

    Young hopes to make the Silver Lining Tea an annual rite of spring in Traverse City. With the enthusiastic help of Dore Shaw, her co-chair and the owner of Tea at Le Fleur Mill, plus a range of community donations, she hopes that the tea will become a fixture on the social scene.

    “I didn’t know anything about putting on a tea, but Dore Shaw did and was a wonderful resource for us,” Young noted. “She made it the success it was and all of her little touches made it much better. We heard many comments from people about how much they enjoyed the tea, it was a very social event and they loved the food.”


Volunteer server Patty Hanell filled many a pot of tea for the 50 guests who gathered at the Central United Methodist Church for the event.


The Silver Lining Tea provided an afternoon of understated elegance, where organizers’ close attention to detail included antique teacups, long-stemmed roses and souvenir chocolates.


Above: The third course of the four-course tea featured luscious desserts, including hand-dipped truffles, chocolates and English biscuits.

Below: Tea devotee Dore Shaw, co-chair of the Silver Lining Tea and owner of Tea at Le Fleur Mill, visits with Alice Mac, center, and Sandy Rodes, left.




Ulrike Goldstein serenades the assembled with the classic sounds of the lute.