Over the last 20 plus years I have been dreaming up how I could create something that supports women and children. As a former young, single mom, I struggled tremendously in my early years of motherhood and beyond. I grew up in high control religion, so most of my friends were also a part of my church. I felt like I was doing everything wrong no matter how hard I tried. Every time I went to another woman to ask for advice, I was usually given some bible verse that didn’t really give me anything tangible to hold onto.

Fast forward to this last year, which has been quite tumultuous for me, but also very healing. I had to dig in and do the work that I didn’t even know how to begin prior to deconstructing from Christianity. Once I allowed myself the permission to be curious and committed to doing the hard things, I found myself completely transforming. With that transformation came a lot of clarity about why I’ve always wanted to help women and children and how I can take steps to make my dream a reality.

That is where House of Reina was born. I decided to name it in honor of my abuela, Antonia Matos Santiago, who was a Boricua Reina (Puerto Rican Queen) in my eyes. I have a crown tattoo on my right forearm in her memory. She was the epitome of what it looks like to be a strong, no-nonsense, independent woman. I have been much like her for most of my life. In my healing, I also discovered the much softer parts of me that are equally as important and realized that so many women haven’t had intentional support. This has caused women to become self-reliant or reliant on someone else. There’s little in-between.

But what if there was? What if women could learn skills, build community, and find their own personal power without blowing their whole lives up? What if they discovered new communication skills, a hobby that could help supplement income, or learned how to garden and preserve food? These are all helpful tools that can help strengthen families, and that is what I hope to do with this project. Rather than live and work in silos, I would like to bring radically loving women together and form natural mentorship and work opportunities to help strengthen homes and communities.

My dream is BIG and so is my heart, so I know that it will take some time to build, but I am super excited to start chipping away. If you are a radically loving woman who is interested in learning more, please head over to my website for House of Reina. I am really looking forward to all of the incredible women I’m going to meet on this part of my journey!