Virtual Babysitters Club
Memphis native helps harried parents and out-of-work performers
Harried parents, restless kids and out-ofwork extroverts are the intended mutual beneficiaries of the Virtual Babysitters Club, a new business founded by a Memphis woman in the wake of the coronavirus shutdown.
Launched last month and already the focus of a segment on ABC’S “Good Morning America,” the initiative enables parents to book interactive “virtual babysitting” appointments with puppeteers, musicians, storytellers, “dance party” leaders, singalong sessioners and other artists, crafters and performers recruited by business co-founder Kristina Hanford, a member of one of the more active Memphis theater families in recent history.
“Performers right now are really struggling,” explained Hanford, 29, a singer, dancer and actress who was raised in Memphis and Germantown but now lives in New York. “And parents are struggling to work at home while trying to entertain their kids. We want to be the bridge to connect these parents and performers.”
Virtual Babysitters Club co-founder Kyle Reilly, 26, a New York financial services industry veteran and (not coincidentally) Kristina’s boyfriend, said “the interactive component” is what distinguishes the screen time of the babysitters club from the screen time offered by a DVD or television show.
“Our goal is to let parents have a break without just putting the kid in front of a program to stare at on TV,” he said. “The point is to build a relationship, have some fun together and get to know each other.”
Or, as the club website states: “VBC was founded to simultaneously address two challenges arising from the tragic COVID-19 pandemic: help talented, out-of-work performing artists, and help parents find time to work from home and get things done around the house.”
A graduate of Germantown High School and the University of Memphis, Hanford is the daughter of local theater stalwarts Robert and
Amy Hanford. Robert is the Ostrander Awardwinning actor whose relatively recent Theater Memphis credits include Gomez in “The Addams Family” and Eye-gor in “Young Frankenstein,” while Amy has directed “Chicago,” “Beauty and the Beast” and numerous other plays at Theater Memphis, Circuit Playhouse and Collierville’s Harrell Performing Arts Theatre.
“I still remember the day we heard Kristina sing,” said Amy Hanford, 49. “She was 3 years old, watching ‘Pocahontas,’ and me and my husband looked at each other and said, ‘Huh, there’s something there...’”
Meanwhile, Kristina’s brothers — Christopher, 28, and Cody, 25 — also are actors, with Cody’s movie credits dating back to elementary school, when he was cast as Johnny Cash’s 9year-old brother in “Walk the Line.”
In other words, the family that does plays together, stays together. “It gave us an opportunity to do something as a family,” said Amy Hanford
(speaking on the phone from Pittsburgh, where Mr. and Mrs. Hanford recently relocated). “Some people go to the soccer field, we went to the theater. It was almost like we were the local von Trapp family.”
After college, Kristina Hanford worked in musical revues at Six Flags Over Texas and on Disney Cruise Lines, where she played the character of Elsa. “I was in the ‘Frozen’ show, so I was the one on stage singing ‘Let It Go.’”
About five years ago, she moved to New York, and became part of the city’s vibrant theater community. A born organizer, she launched “The Shirley Project,” which connected performers with seniors for dates to the theaters, museums and so on.
Although COVID-19 put a (temporary) end to that kind of one-on-one association, the stayat-home mandates necessitated by the pandemic inspired Hanford to devise the Virtual
“I love that this gives parents an opportunity to sit down and have a cup of coffee or glass of wine. Or just empty a dishwasher.”
Amy Hanford
Local theater director and mother
Babysitters Club, as a way to provide her suddenly out-of-work colleagues with a job while also providing a needed service for stuck-at-home parents with attention-hungry out-of-school kids.
While hardly celebrities, the “babysitters” are professional entertainers, Hanford said, with credits on Broadway, off-broadway, Nickelodeon and so on. Also, many of the performers — including Hanford — had jobs as nannies or babysitters before the virus (to supplement their often iffy actor’s income), so they were used to capturing the attention of children.
“Although we stumbled upon it somewhat accidentally, we think bringing professional entertainers in one-onone interactive situations could be the future of children’s entertainment,” Reilly said.
The website virtualbabysittersclub.com offers a variety of options or “studios” for parents to select, ranging from one-on-one sessions to group activities, presented Zoom-style, so kids can interact with each other as well as with the “babysitter.”
Said Reilly: “Each performer runs their own show, really, so it’s up to them to use their creative energy to figure out what they’re going to do. There are so many unique ways to entertain and instruct children.”
The business was launched, tentatively, via an announcement in a newsletter distributed in the Upper West Side of New York. “We got hundreds of emails,” Hanford said. “It was very encouraging for the performers but also for the parents.”
Now, with an attractive website and a consulting firm vetting the performers who apply to be “babysitters,” the company is attracting corporate and museum clients as well as individuals. Prices start at $18 an hour for a group session and increase to $30 for an individual session, and so on. As in pre-coronavirus life, a kid can request a favorite “babysitter” for repeat sessions.
Amy Hanford said that while being a parent is a 24/7 job even in the best of times, this is certainly not the best of times. “I love that this gives parents an opportunity to sit down and have a cup of coffee or glass of wine. Or just empty a dishwasher.”