Where We Come From. How We Got Here. Why It Matters.
This page exists because the story of Hatch Community is not just history. It is the foundation of everything being built right now. Understanding where this work came from is part of understanding where it is going.
THE ORIGINAL HATCH
What Hatch Was
Hatch Community was founded in Oakland, CA to serve young parents under 25 — providing access to doula services, building community across peer networks, and training young parents as doulas themselves. The model was radical in its simplicity: build a real village, with real relationships, rooted in the lived experience of the people it served.
The programs included birth doula training, postpartum doula training, nurturing touch doulas, and street doulas. The organization trained certified doulas from within the community — creating economic opportunity alongside care.
Hatch closed in 2020 after years of significant impact. The closing was painful. And the work did not stop.
THE GRADUATES
What the Graduates Did
Hatch was designed to build leaders. When it closed, those leaders kept going — continuing to work as doulas, building organizations, staying connected to one another and to the families they had served. The village that Hatch built did not dissolve when the organization closed. It adapted.
Shayanna Love, a graduate of Hatch’s 2017 doula training program, is the clearest expression of this. She went on to found Love’s Pathway — a Bay Area nonprofit empowering foster and formerly incarcerated adolescents who are expecting or parenting. She built it from the same foundation Hatch gave her: lived experience, community-centered practice, and the belief that the people who most need a village are the ones best equipped to build one.
THE REBIRTH
What Is Happening Now
In 2024, Shayanna and Kat Whipple — Hatch’s founding executive director — began the work of bringing Hatch back, with Love’s Pathway as the living legacy organization at the center. The doula training programs are returning. The street doula model is expanding into community health work. The geographic reach is growing across the Bay Area.
This is not a nostalgia project. It is a continuation — built on everything Hatch learned, carried forward by the people it grew, and designed to go further than the original ever could.
The seeds Hatch planted are still growing. Love’s Pathway is the bloom. And the bloom becomes the next seed.
Hatch Community × Love's Pathway
A History of Seeds
& the People Who Grew Them
Two organizations. One living legacy. A village that never stopped growing.
Hatch Community
Love's Pathway
Together
2012–15
Hatch Community — Research & Foundation
Listening Before Building
Before a single program launched, Kat Whipple spent three years conducting deep research across the Bay Area to assess the real gaps in services for Transitional Age Youth (TAY). Over 100 nonprofits were interviewed. Over 100 TAY parenting youth were interviewed directly. It was during this research process that Kat met Allison Stanton — and the two recognized a shared vision for what needed to be built. What the research made clear: this community needed services specifically designed for TAY parents, meaningful young adult workforce development, and trauma-informed support and community — not just referrals to systems that weren't built for them. Hatch was designed from the ground up to meet those gaps.
100+ nonprofits interviewed
100+ TAY parents interviewed
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2015
Hatch Community
The Village Is Founded
Kat Whipple and Allison Stanton officially co-found Hatch Community in Oakland, CA — built on three years of research and designed from the start to fill a gap no one else was filling. The mission: disrupt cycles of poverty, nurture parent-child relationships, and transform generations through economic opportunity, birth education, and a community of support built for and by young parents under 25.
Hatch Community
Cohort 1: First Doulas Trained
Hatch launches its first Birth and Postpartum Doula Training program — a nine-month intensive running from fall 2015 through summer 2016, certifying young parents from within the community as doulas. The model turns lived experience into professional practice, building economic opportunity and a web of peer support at the same time. The community meeting model launches alongside it — free monthly gatherings with expert speakers, dinner, and childcare, with gift card incentives ensuring young parents under 24 can always attend.
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2016
Hatch Community
Street Doula Program Launches
Hatch launches its Street Doula program — expanding the village beyond the training room and into the community itself. Street doulas meet young parents where they are: in shelters, on streets, and inside systems. They provide peer education, outreach, and direct connection to resources — linking individuals and families to support and helping them find their way, their voice, and their strength. Community is not just a place you come to. It comes to you.
Hatch Community
Cohort 2 Graduates — The Village Grows
Hatch's second cohort of Birth and Postpartum Doulas completes their nine-month program, running fall 2016 through summer 2017, deepening the network of trained peer doulas actively serving young families across Alameda County. Community meetings continue monthly through the year, covering hospital birth preparation, pregnancy movement, labor interventions, and epidurals — with doulas presenting their own learning to the broader community.
Shayanna's Story
A Young Mom Feels the Gap
Shayanna Love becomes pregnant at 19. Her birth preferences and experience go unsupported — she feels acutely the absence of community and informed care. The disparity she experiences becomes the seed of everything she builds next. She begins actively seeking the support and network that her experience showed her was missing for young parents like her.
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2017
Hatch Community × Shayanna Love
Shayanna Joins Hatch — A Path Begins
Shayanna is introduced to Kat at Hatch Community and is accepted into the fall 2017 doula training program as a young parent — the same cohort that runs through summer 2018. She becomes a certified Hatch doula — absorbing not just the skills but the philosophy, the community, and the values that will one day form the foundation of Love's Pathway. She doesn't yet know how far the path will take her.
Hatch Community
Mentor Training Program Launches
In September, Hatch launches its Peer Mentor Training Program — graduates and peers trained to mentor new trainees through the nine-month doula program. Cohort 3 mentors include Bianca, Beatriz, Nicole, Chantal, Alatia, Natalie, and Brittney. This formalized the leadership pipeline: graduates became mentors, mentors became program directors, and the village learned to grow itself.
Hatch Community
Hatch Turns 2 — "Legacy of Love" Ceremony
Hatch celebrates its second anniversary and the graduation of Cohort 2 with the "Legacy of Love" celebration ceremony — a milestone event marking both the growth of the organization and the depth of the community it had built. Cohort 3 trainees are already in their nine-month program and touring Highland Hospital alongside program directors and mentors.
Hatch Community
Financial Empowerment Added to Curriculum
Hatch partners with Inner City Advisors to bring financial empowerment, business formation, and networking education directly to doula trainees — helping them launch their own doula businesses alongside completing certification. The integration of trade skills with soft skills — emotional literacy, self-care, advocacy — becomes a signature of Hatch's model.
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2018
Hatch Community
Nurturing Touch Doula Program Launches
February 2018: Hatch launches its Nurturing Touch Doula certification training — bringing evidence-based therapeutic touch into the village as a tool for bonding, nervous system regulation, and healing. Trained practitioners work one-on-one with new families, laying the foundation for more resilient relationships from the very beginning of life. The program reflects Hatch's belief that the body holds what words cannot always reach.
Hatch Community
Street Doulas Paint Community Mural
May 2018: After four months of planning, Hatch's Street Doulas lead a community mural project — painting a mural that portrays Mother Earth as a womb and celebrates the transformation of generations. The mural brings Oakland's different cultures together into one shared image of empowerment. A Community Baby Shower follows, with local birth workers, midwives, doulas, and families gathering to celebrate community.
Hatch Community
Cohort 3 Celebration Ceremony
June 2018: Cohort 3 graduates their nine-month Birth and Postpartum Doula Program — running fall 2017 through summer 2018 — in a community celebration open to all. A networking gathering bringing together local doulas, midwives, birthworkers, and community members. Among the graduates: doulas who go on to become homebirth midwife apprentices, nursing students, Planned Parenthood staff, and early childhood practitioners.
"Hatch saw the birth of who I would become, before I even attended the first birth of one of my clients, let alone the birth of who I am, today."
— Brittany Hatcher Malone, Cohort 3 Graduate
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2018–19
Hatch Community
The Village at Full Strength
Hatch operates at the height of its impact — running all five doula programs simultaneously with an average yearly budget of just $65,000. The organization trains hundreds of community members, serves young families across Alameda County, and hosts monthly community meetings featuring expert speakers on everything from nutrition and self-care to labor support and business formation. The Facebook Live series extends reach beyond Oakland.
$65K avg annual budget
500+ community members supported
Hatch Community
Doula Graduates Change Their Trajectories
Graduates of Hatch's Birth and Postpartum program go on to: 2 homebirth midwife apprenticeships, 3 Nurse Midwife programs, 2 nursing schools, 11 college completions, and 9 positions at Planned Parenthood, Early Childhood Programs, and medical fields. Many continue working as doulas. All continue supporting families in their lives. The economic opportunity mission is fulfilled — and then some.
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2019
Hatch Community
4+ Years of Impact — The Numbers
In just four years on an average budget of $65,000 per year, Hatch trained 122 doulas across all five programs and served over 270 young families through Birth and Postpartum doulas. The ripple extended to 500+ more young people and professionals through support, education, outreach, and trainings across the community.
122 doulas trained
270+ families served
500+ community members reached
Hatch Community
Hatch Closes — With Grace
October 2019: Unable to secure the funding and partnerships needed for long-term sustainability, Hatch announces it will close December 31st. The community rallies to raise $10,000 to close with grace — paying peer doulas through December and honoring final programming. The closing post reflects the five doula programs, the impact, and the values: radical inclusivity, honesty, self-love, healing, reciprocal growth, and resiliency.
"Hatch has had the most amazing impact in my life, they have helped me grow into the person I want to keep becoming both professionally and personally."
— Natalia, Bilingual Hatch Doula
"Hatch has taught me that by practicing self-love and care I am most able to support and empower those that I love and want to serve."
— Ayaunna, Hatch Doula and Board Chair
Hatch Community
Closing Announced — Closing With Grace
October 2019: Unable to secure the funding and partnerships needed for long-term sustainability, Hatch announces it will close December 31st. The community rallies to raise $10,000 to close with grace — paying peer doulas through the end of the year and honoring final programming. The closing post reflects the five doula programs, the full impact, and the values that defined everything: radical inclusivity, honesty, self-love, healing, reciprocal growth, and resiliency.
"Hatch has had the most amazing impact in my life, they have helped me grow into the person I want to keep becoming both professionally and personally."
— Natalia, Bilingual Hatch Doula
"Hatch has taught me that by practicing self-love and care I am most able to support and empower those that I love and want to serve."
— Ayaunna, Hatch Doula and Board Chair
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2020
Hatch Community
Hatch Closes — The Work Doesn't
Hatch officially closes in 2020. The community is devastated. But the 122 doulas Hatch trained keep working. The relationships built in the village hold. Shayanna, alongside other Hatch graduates and mentors, continues actively providing doula services — collaborating as a network to serve families referred directly by Kat and Hatch after closing. The village doesn't dissolve. It reorganizes. The seeds don't stop growing just because the garden gate closes.
2021–23
Shayanna Love
The Spark Becomes a Flame
Shayanna recognizes that community, networking, and support are still critically lacking for young parents — especially those navigating foster care and incarceration. Drawing on everything Hatch taught her, she begins building what will become Love's Pathway: a community-centered organization rooted in lived experience, trauma-informed care, and the belief that people who have navigated the hardest pathways are best equipped to light them for others.
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2024
Love's Pathway
Love's Pathway Is Founded
Shayanna officially founds Love's Pathway — a Bay Area nonprofit dedicated to empowering foster and formerly incarcerated adolescents who are expecting or parenting. The organization is built on the same foundation that made Hatch transformative: lived experience, community-centered practice, and the belief that transforming generations requires an actual village, one that holds all parts of a person across every intersection of identity.
Hatch Community × Love's Pathway
The Rebirth Begins
Shayanna and Kat reunite with a shared vision: bring Hatch back, with Love's Pathway as the living legacy organization at the center. Birth, postpartum, and nurturing touch doula training programs will return. The street doula model will expand into a full community health worker program. The village will grow across Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco counties. The bloom becomes the next seed.
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Now
Hatch Community × Love's Pathway
The Village Is Rebuilding
Birth, postpartum, and nurturing touch doula training programs are relaunching. Street doulas are evolving into certified community health workers. Strategic hubs of support are being built across the Bay Area. And the community — the whole, living, interconnected village that holds all parts of a person — is growing together again. Shayanna understands this work because she has navigated love's pathway from her own life, through Hatch and now beyond — each experience informing how to better serve those around her.
Alameda County
Contra Costa County
San Francisco County
The seeds Hatch planted are still growing.
Love's Pathway is the bloom.
And the bloom becomes the next seed.
Join us in building what comes next — a village that holds the whole person, grows together, and transforms generations.
Visit Love's Pathway →