At Mother Mentors, we envision a community where all families with young children on Whidbey Island thrive through support and connection.
Meet the Team
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Jane Bothel
Board President
Jane has served with Mother Mentors since 2014 as a Board member, mentor, and Playscape volunteer. As Board President, she draws on her career as a project manager with a specialization in finance, legal affairs, and management of consultant teams. Her commitment to Mother Mentors is fueled by her desire to support Island families and to mentor and equip the next generation of leaders in this important work. As the organization transitions from its founding leadership to a new group of Board members, she looks forward to new ideas, energy, and opportunity for growth. She is also involved in various artistic endeavors as a musician.
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Laura McAlister
Board Vice President
Since joining the Mother Mentors Board of Directors in 2022, Laura McAlister has drawn on her decades of expertise in early childhood education, parent education, literacy development, and anti-bias curriculum to serve as Board Vice President. With a career encompassing leadership in nonprofit management, program innovation, and professional development, Laura has devoted herself to supporting children, families, and educators in building equitable, high-quality learning environments. Laura enjoys hiking, traveling and spending time with grandchildren (ages 3 and 6).
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Esther Iles
Program Director
Esther has been supporting children and families for the past forty years. She worked in Early Childhood Education for most of that time taking on various roles, from teacher, to Supervisor to Coach. Infants and toddlers are her specialty which led her to acquire an endorsement from the Washington Association for Infant Mental Health. She is passionate about the social and emotional health of children and their families as this lays a secure groundwork for a healthy and resilient community. Esther is dedicated to nurturing her community, supporting families, and striving for the health of the planet.
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Shealyn Christie
Playscape Facilitator, Langley
Shealyn is thrilled to connect with families at Playscape in Langley! A proud Whidbey Island resident since 2000, Shealyn graduated from Coupeville High School in 2005. She earned her degree in Elementary Education from Whitworth University, spending a year abroad in Scotland, where she met her husband. Together, they returned to Whidbey to raise their family. When she’s not at Playscape, Shealyn can be found shuttling her kids to soccer practice or performing in productions at the Whidbey Playhouse.
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Diana Bergman
Playscape Facilitator, Oak Harbor
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Tasha Miller
Marketing and Outreach Coordinator
Tasha is passionate about nurturing parents. Along with her meaningful work at Mother Mentors, you can find Tasha chasing her children and chickens and collaborating with the global motherhood collective she co-founded, Mother Wild. She co-facilitates retreats for mothers and an online community that helps mothers connect to each other and themselves. She is also proudly working to support the next generation of community leaders as the troop leader for the local Girl Scouts.
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Melanie Lowey
Administration
Melanie is committed to her work with Mother Mentors because she knows that we can only build a better future by creating a present where children are supported, nourished and feel safe. She has worn many hats over the last 23 years living on Whidbey Island, from caring for seniors at Time Together Adult Day Program, to cooking breakfasts at the Whidbey Institute. She has a background in theater and you may have seen her in local theatrical productions as an actor, director and music director. She sings opera and loves her old white dog.
Our Board
We acknowledge that there are opportunity gaps for many young children and families based on race, ethnicity, gender, income, ability, culture, and geography.
We commit to eliminating these gaps and addressing the root causes.
We commit to approaching our work with a sense of cultural humility and inclusion.
We commit to becoming better listeners to the voices and concerns of people of color and those from non-traditional family structures to further our understanding of how to combat disparities and better support all families in our community.
Values We Practice:
We foster healthy, positive family relationships for those we serve, for our staff, and for our volunteers.
We facilitate relationship-building among families in our programs and between families with staff and volunteers.
We value the inter-generational nature of our work.
We demonstrate integrity, honest, and transparency at all levels of our organization.
We are accountable to our families and our community.
