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MOM LIFE
Erica Scherzer
Stay-at-home mom and volunteer
OCCUPATION: LIVES:
McLean, VA
Husband, Max;
and daughters, Brooke, 2 ½;
and Kasey, 1
PHOTO COURTESY OF ERICA SCHERZER
FAMILY: Do you know a local parent who
juggles multiple priorities while
making a positive impact in their
community? Nominate them
as a subject of our Mom/Dad
Life column by emailing editor@
washingtonFAMILY.com. How is your family coping
with the coronavirus pandemic?
Honestly, pretty good. I hate to say that in the
middle of this terrible pandemic, but my hus-
band’s employed, we have a lot of resources at
our disposal and we have the privilege to be
able to stay home. Are we bored? Yes, we’re
bored. Would I love to be able to just go hang
out at Starbucks and go see a bunch of friends
and go to a restaurant to eat? I would love
to do all those things. But I also realize that
I’m in a unique, blessed position where I can
abstain from doing those.

My sister’s a surgeon, so I’ve heard some
awful stories of people coming in with COVID
and their family can’t say goodbye to them.

Hearing those things just puts it in perspec-
tive. In the grand scheme of things, yeah, we’re
bored, but it could be a heck of a lot worse.

now we’re focusing on schools in Wards 7 and
8 in Anacostia, but depending on how much we
raise, we’ll increase from there. [Max and I] are
cleaning out our personal collection of memo-
rabilia. We have so much stuff over the years—
jerseys, balls, hats, cards, you name it, and
we’re raffling items off. People can also enter
by volunteering their time, by making masks,
by donating food. It’s just our way of trying to
make the best of a tough situation, and we’re
matching all money raised.

How do you take care of your
mental and physical health?
I’m actually a big mediator. I got into it
maybe a year and a half ago after I had my
first daughter and [was adjusting] to moth-
erhood and the identity shift. It’s something
I’d read about for years, and once I finally
put it into practice for myself, it helps. ...

And then I also try to stay off social media as
much as possible!
What has baseball season been
like for your family this year?
I think one of the challenges is not hanging
out with the other spouses as much. Nor-
mally, you’d have big get-togethers, huge
playdates, team parties, things like that. And
right now we can’t exactly get an entire team
together in a house and take those chances.

Let’s talk about your volunteer
work. How do you choose
the organizations that you
get involved with?
A lot of them have, in some ways, picked me.

Humane Rescue Alliance, for example. Back
when they were Washington Humane Society,
one of their employees ran into me at a base-
ball game and knew that I had a passion for
animal welfare. [Max and I] just loved their
mission, their vision and got heavily involved.

I ended up joining the board a while after.

We did start a new initiative called Nats for
Masks (natsformasks.com). Essentially we are
providing masks and relief efforts for lower
income communities in the DMV area. Right
What do you find so rewarding
about volunteering?
I get a lot out of this. I absolutely love
doing the work. I love doing the program
development. I love brainstorming ways to
raise more money or come up with new ideas.

It’s incredibly fulfilling.

What’s something that makes
juggling all of this—
your family, baseball,
your personal responsibilities—
a little bit easier for you?
Routine is definitely a big part of it. I’m also
a big believer in waking up before my kids do
every day. So I get up at least an hour to two
hours before they do, and I start my day on
my terms, in my own way. The days where I
slack on that don’t tend to go as well.

And keeping perspective if things go
sour: Just like the Nats go 1 and 0 every day,
we try to go 1 and 0 in our household every
day, too. T
Visit WashingtonFAMILY.com for a longer
version of this interview.

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