Helping Out Ohio Mothers

How would you like to save the taxpayers in your community about $1.4 million a year? Kaiko Laser Zureich does in the Toledo, Ohio area as a board member for Mom’s House.

Mom’s House is a non-profit organization that provides free daycare for the children of young mothers while they attend school. The organization also provides parenting classes, scholarships, counseling and tutoring. Kaiko, who is also the executive director of marketing for Impact Products, a Toledo supplier, is on the boardof directors.

“I got involved with Mom’s House in June 2007 when Jim Findley, founder of Impact, handed me a blue folder and told me to read it,” said Kaiko.

It was perfect timing, as Kaiko was just finishing her second term as president of the Advertising Club of Toledo when she joined the board of Mom’s House.

“I would like to be a role model for the girls at Mom’s House,” said Kaiko. “I was also a young mother, and there were lots of people who helped me out.”

She is a big believer in charitable work, and said, “I have had more paybacks from being involved in the community as a volunteer than from anything else I do.”

Kaiko attends about 10 meetings a month for Mom’s House and her other volunteer commitments, including being a cabinet member of Flower Hospital Cancer Center Campaign, and a member of the board of directors and ex-officio president of the Ad Club.

One of the things she has been put in charge of at Mom’s House is to develop a new logo for the organization’s 15th year anniversary. She’s also on the committee for the group’s largest annual fundraiser called “Mom’s Nite Out.”

“The event includes a silent auction, dinner, entertainment and a well-known speaker,” Kaiko said. “I’m going to donate three or four MonkeyKoko™ things, and I will also badger people for donations.”

What are “MonkeyKoko things?” They are one-of-a-kind designer scarves and accessories that Kaiko designs, makes and donates to charities for auctions and fundraising events.

“I got the name when the little daughter of a friend pronounced ‘Auntie Kaiko’ as ‘MonkeyKoko,’” Kaiko said. “I always said I’d use that name for something.”

If you think you might like to get your hands on a MonkeyKoko design, get your checkbook ready — she only makes them for charity.

“I tell anyone who wants to buy a MonkeyKoko scarf that they have to attend an event and buy it through the charity,” she said.

There doesn’t seem to be any exceptions to this rule. Kaiko told me that Debi Neal, the wife of Impact’s president, Terry Neal, wanted one of the scarves. Debi had to attend a charity auction and buy it there.

While she is vocal about her charitable work, Kaiko is — well, until now — secretive about her MonkeyKoko creations.

“It takes me a long time to make the things, and it’s because I don’t want anybody to see me knitting with the yarn, beads and feathers I put into the designs,” she said. “I don’t want to be known as a ‘knitting granny,’ and I don’t want anybody to catch me with knitting needles. I usually do my knitting while watching football games on television. And I do it with the blinds closed.”

In fact, Kaiko is so secretive about her knitting that a lot of people don’t know that she is behind MonkeyKoko

Gretchen Roufs, an 18-year janitorial supply industry veteran, owns a marketing and public relations company in San Antonio. To suggest someone you think should be featured in “Freetime,” contact her at GretchenRoufs@aol.com.