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Alameda Business Focus: Monkey Bars

-By Heather Lyn Wood, Alameda Business Focus

Mother of a 5-year-old boy, Monkey Bars owner Heather Reed is committed to providing eco-friendly, sustainably sourced baby and children’s products for busy parents.

Heather Reed is really excited about environmentally friendly baby products, and she’s not afraid to let it show. One visit with Reed at her store on Park Street confirms her enthusiasm. An Ohio native and longtime Bay Area resident, Reed was an employee of Monkey Bars in 2008 when she learned that its owners were planning to close the store.

“I was a single mom at the time,” she said in an interview. “I was really struggling. I had nothing, but I was like, ‘No, this store has to stay open. I’m buying it.’”

Three years later, she still has a gleam in her eye about Monkey Bars — the products it provides, the parents who trust her to find them, and the babies and children who use them.

The petite boutique on Park Street specializes in “feeding, clothing, and diapering solutions for the busy but Earth-Conscious parent.” Mother to a 5-year-old son, Reed says she has experienced firsthand the anxiety that accompanies wanting to keep a small child as safe as possible.
“It’s a balance,” Reed explained. “If you think about toxins and safety constantly, you drive yourself insane. But you want to know that the things you’re using are safe. I go crazy so you don’t have to.”

To fulfill this promise, Reed offers eco-friendly and toxin-free alternatives to conventional children’s wear, toys, and a wide selection of other supplies for parents. She purchases sustainably sourced goods and buys local whenever possible. When she does buy goods made overseas, she makes sure to have direct, firsthand knowledge about where and how they are made. Reed believes that many companies want to manufacture their products in the United States, but feel that it is not economically feasible to do so before establishing themselves in the U.S. market.

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