Today we’d like to introduce you to Kim Olstrup.
Reflections of Progress
Mother, wife, business owner, and entrepreneur, Kim Karotkin Olstrup is a modern-day superwoman. We took the opportunity to pick her brain, asking her how she got her start, what she’s doing now, and where she plans to go next.
My husband and I started Blue Moose International in 2000, an art/mirror framing business supplying hotels with their artwork and mirrors all across the United States.
With my daughter attending a private Montessori school, and designing hotel projects, I was extremely content with my life.
A few years later, due to unfortunate circumstances, my daughter’s 6th-grade Montessori guide was leaving the United States.
I knew just enough about Montessori to believe in the teaching and methods, as well as being inspired by this amazing man’s gift of knowledge. Armed with the understanding of what a loss it would be to both my child and local education, I founded Mid-cities Montessori.
Opening our doors to all students in the metroplex, Mid-cities Montessori focuses on self-directed hands-on education that prepares our children for the future.
From there, my next goal was finding a way to bring the community together.
The Mid-cities is not just where we live, it is our home, and we wanted it to feel that way for everyone.
I decided the best approach of joining the community would be to start from within the school.
From the preschool through high school, and all the way up to the teachers and staff, the entire school began doing acts of kindness.
Throughout the year, we have done canned food drives, a toilet paper challenge for a local mobile food pantry, and collecting non-perishable food donations for furloughed government employees, as well and much more.
Although we were making a difference, I felt there was more to be done.
I wanted to find a way to involve other local businesses and community members.
With this idea, I formed a women’s networking group which includes over 200 local women business owners. We host monthly meetings to discuss ways to better serve and help grow our community. We focus on funding groups that are lesser-known to help with small acts of kindness, as well as hosting fundraisers and other charity events.
We recently gave gift bags to a local women’s ovarian cancer network, filled with items donated by the local business community from Blankets, crossword puzzles, soft fuzzy socks, butterscotch candy (it kills the metallic taste of chemo), and words of encouragement that were placed in every bag that we donated.
Just small tokens to remind them that someone is thinking about them.
Recently, I started a weekly farmer’s market, Mid-cities Community Farmers/Artisan Market which is a free event for vendors, shoppers, and all other members of the community to come out, meet their neighbors, support local businesses and build lasting relationships. The camaraderie created by the success of the market motivated me to take on yet another project, and so the Urban Roots indoor community garden was born.
The indoor swimming pool of our Mid-cities Montessori has been filled with dirt, as we begin turning it into a community garden. We will be celebrating its grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on August 9th, and I hope that you will come out and show your support.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
With any business, there are always challenges that you face on a daily basis, and this is so very true with every business that I have started in the later years. Nothing comes easy in life, and I grasp that concept to a degree. But, I am also an optimist and believe that there is hopefully the potential of spreading more good than bad. We take on other challenges or obstacles every single day and try to ease the load for many others. We created a “pay it forward” room in our building. A room with items that people donate to give to others in need. Whether fire, flood, or just a new lease on life.. we all need to have someone cheering us on. A cheerleader that tells us that what we are doing is important. Every day, when I come to Mid-cities Montessori, I see children that are happy to be here at school, that hate summer breaks, that truly understand that they have cheerleaders supporting them every single day. From their parents to the staff at Mid-cities Montessori, to the students. This is why the motto is “learn happy.”
Please tell us about Midcities Montessori.
Mid-cities Montessori was created by a need. A need for a different approach to learning from preschool through high school. We focus on the following:
Individualized Development
Each child has his or her unique abilities which inform their speed of learning. We do not believe in “one size fits all” education approach. Our job is to identify and accelerate individual strengths and use them as motivators.
THINK not to MEMORIZE…
It is impossible in today’s society to know every required skill, every coding language or anticipate future vocational needs that one will face. The only true way to prepare our children for the future is the ability to think, formulate questions and learn independently.
Learn By Doing
Hands-on experience is far more powerful than any worksheet.
Love What You Do
Children are creative and uninhibited by nature, our job is to allow them to innovate, feel success, and develop a passion for everything they do. True passion has no limits.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
So many lessons are learned on a daily basis, especially with juggling so many businesses at the same time. I get up every day knowing that what we do at Mid-cities Montessori impacts so many families in our community. The kids feel like the school is their home, and the parents feel like they are part of a community as well. With being the new kid on the block, opening a school in a rented space in a shopping center, parents taking tours have no idea just how warm a school environment can feel. With having 25,000 sq ft of space, and the whole school being completely nestled all in one building, and now forming the Urban Roots Community Garden in our facility seems to now have a full circle of compassion and purpose. It feels like we are getting closer to reaching our goal of being able to give even more back to our community now. I can see now how the Mid-cities Montessori, the Mid-cities Community Farmers Market, the Urban Roots community Garden and my group of AMAZING networking ladies are slowly spreading the idea of just being “nice.”
Contact Info:
- Address: Midcities Montessori
209 Harwood Rd. #B
Bedford, Texas 76021 - Website: www.midcitiesmontessori.com
- Phone: 817-476-1647
- Email: kim@midcitiesmontessori.com
- Instagram: #midcitiesmontessori
- Facebook: @midcitiesmontessori.com
Image Credit:
Ordonez photography for the headshot, Bizeteen high school class of Midcities Montessori, Blue Moose International, TWS women networking group, Midcities Community Farmers Market, Urban Roots Community Garden
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