When Tara Owens’ son, Kade, was younger, she signed him up for every sport she could think of—soccer, football, tennis, kayaking. He’d been diagnosed with autism, and she wanted him to try new activities and play with other kids. But the same thing kept happening. “I would get that coach a week or two in, calling me to say, ‘I don’t know if this is gonna work out,’ ” Tara recalls. The coaches would complain that Kade was slower than the other kids, or that his behavior was too hard to manage.
“Great,” she’d say. “Would you like an assistant coach?”
She helped out with all of her son’s teams. “I had to figure out a way,” she says.
In her latest role as Deputy Director of Main Street, Tara has found herself connecting with other parents who’ve experienced similar challenges. Her son is getting ready to graduate from high school, a milestone that brings with it a lot of uncertainty. “You think you have all this time when they’re younger,” says Tara, who also has a 16-year-old daughter named Lexis. “Then you’re finally at that graduation year and it really sets in—and it’s scary.” At a recent parent coffee, Tara shared that during tough times she takes early morning hikes with a friend, and after they talk about their lives, they promise to “leave it all in the woods.” A few days later, a parent came up to her at Friday Vibes and said, “I think I need to try that—I think I need to try and leave it in the woods a bit more.”
“You never know what will resonate with someone,” Tara says. “You never know what people are going through when they walk through that door, what challenges they had to overcome just to get here.”
Before joining Main Street in April, Tara worked as a financial specialist for Montgomery County Public Schools and helped out in special education classrooms. Prior to that, she was an accounting supervisor and an auditor. For the last 13 years, she’s owned a Jazzercise studio, blending her passion for dance and fitness with community building. “When there’s music on and I’m moving or dancing, that’s my fun, happy side,” Tara says. “I love going on a dance floor and bringing other people out of their shell.”
About a month into her new job, Tara says she feels a sense of belonging and camaraderie at Main Street. When she walked into her first Friday Vibes, a member approached her and asked, “Do you remember me?” The young woman was on Kade’s kayaking team. “I just remember feeling like, these are my people, this is what I like,” Tara says. “This is where I should be.”
