Tamara Taitt is the founder of Magnolia Birth House in North Miami Beach. It’s the only community-founded women’s natural birthing center in Miami-Dade County.
"They are being invited into an intimate space for a family and that they’re being provided with care that really speaks to how critical of a moment it is. Some of that doesn’t happen in a more medical sterile hospital setting," said Taitt.
Taitt opened Magnolia in 2016 when she found there were only a few black-owned birthing centers in South Florida. Before that, she worked at community-based non-profits as a marriage and family therapist.
"[There are] almost 400 birth centers in the country, maybe 15 of them are black-owned. In Florida, there are currently three black-owned centers. So my partner and I just wanted to be able to create a space where people who are from this community can see themselves reflected in the care that they received and would have an opportunity to be provided care by people who look like them and who have the same life experiences as they do," added Taitt.
During the pandemic, needing some help, Taitt turned to the Miami Bayside Foundation.
The nonprofit organization’s goal is to advance minority and women-owned businesses and further job growth.
"We offer small business training which is a five-week program which brings in subject matter experts as well as exposes our small businesses to local resources they can utilize for their business," said Joshua Numa with MBF.
Mbf helped restructure Taitt’s business through their free small business workshop.
During the pandemic, the foundation has granted over 800 loans to minority-owned businesses.
"Magnolia actually came through our small business training program. They got acclimated with our training, our local area experts and got that real support that they would need to grow and thrive their business. From there they decided to lend from us and it just became a joyous partnership," added Numa.
"We received the loan in the midst of the pandemic and at that time there’s an increased demand and so I think it was important to receive the help at that time," said Taitt.
If you’re a small business, you can find the requirements and how to apply here.
