Website Sandwich Helps Parent Advocate Bring Her Dream to Life
As her phone continued to dial the number for a website design company she’d never met, Angie Frey’s level of anxiety grew. Developing a site on her own wasn’t an option but explaining what she wanted to strangers was intimidating. “I hoped whoever answered wouldn’t just laugh and hang up,” she says. “If I had gotten on the phone with someone who questioned what I was doing, it would have been discouraging and I might have given up the whole idea.”
Frey needed a website to support the work she does as an advocate and resource for parents with children in the juvenile justice system. It’s a position that didn’t exist until she created it, and the journey has required courage and vulnerability every step of the way. When she went looking for online tools to help parents navigate the system and cope with the impact on their families, she couldn’t find any. That’s when she decided to create her own.
“There’s so much stigma attached to the situation that a lot of times parents have a difficult time reaching out for support,” she explains. “I wanted to be able to have something online that they could access in the privacy of their own home without that would provide them some resources about what to expect.”
Fortunately, her call was answered by Blu Hope, Sales Representative for Website Sandwich. From the beginning, Frey felt comfortable. “Blu was so supportive right off the bat, which was the difference-maker for me,” she says. “When you’re attempting to do something big and step out on your own it’s so scary and you’re fighting through a lot of self-doubt. She gave me that assurance that we can do this.”
Blu broke down the process in a way that made foreign concepts and terms understandable, including the idea of branding. “There’s so much terminology that you don’t know if you don’t work in that field,” says Frey. “She explained what branding looks like, why it’s important and how it relates to how I want people to feel when they come to my website. I had no idea.”
The end result is a website for the Pathways to Hope Network that communicates the essence of her efforts and provides credibility. “The website beautifully captured, down to colors and pictures, what this is about,” she says. “It looked so professional that I was able to confidently step out and really begin to own what I’m doing.” The site includes an FAQ page for parents along with local and national resources.
Because she had to create her own content – another venture into unfamiliar territory – Frey had many questions along the way.
“They were so patient with me,” she says. “It didn’t matter how many times I called or emailed, they cared about getting it right. It’s more than just a company that’s creating a website, it was these people who were walking alongside and helping me to achieve this dream that I had. Now that’s impacting other people’s lives.”