After years and years of writing Mother’s Day stories in appreciation of all-things-mom, I was fresh out of ideas. That’s when it dawned on me. Call Mindy. mindyKNOWS.
Mindy is Mindy Horwitz, 53, who in addition to having raised three sons, now serves as a surrogate mother of sorts to roughly 130 Washington University students through a college concierge business she began in 2019 called mindyKNOWS. In short, she does for the students what their parents cannot because they live out of town. These tasks can include everything from providing doctor referrals, to picking up their prescriptions, to decorating dorm rooms, to packing up dorm rooms, to bringing them chicken soup when they’re sick, to cheering them up with a bouquet of balloons and chocolate cupcakes on their birthday or at the end of a particularly hard day.
“I know the peace of mind what I do gives to parents,” said Mindy, who trained as a social worker and is married to Rabbi Brad Horwitz, chief Jewish engagement officer at the Jewish Community Center.
She said she got the idea for her business when her eldest son’s roommate, who was from New Jersey, hurt his knee during their freshman year at WashU.
“I found out after the fact that he had been hurt,” said Mindy. “I said to the roommate’s mom, ‘Why didn’t you call me, I would have brought him what he needed.’ And she said, and I remember this vividly, ‘I didn’t want to put you out.’ And that was like a light bulb for me because I realized sometimes you don’t want to ask a favor. You just want the job to get done.”
Mindy and her team — CFO Karen Smoller, Head of Strategy Leslie Zacks and Supermom (and Mindy’s backup) Susie Rubin — certainly get the job done and then some. Mindy likens her pricing structure to that of Costco’s, where a family buys a membership, ranging from $49 per month to $450 for the school year to $1,600 for all four years. Membership gets them a direct phone line to Mindy for her expertise, counsel and knowledge of St. Louis, should they need referrals, advice and/or recommendations. She charges between $60 and $75 an hour for deliveries and errand running, though given her thoughtful nature, she throws in a couple of free hours for new members.
Recently, I hung out with her to observe the master mom in action. The Friday morning before Passover we loaded up the Mindy Mobile — a 2022 white Tesla Model Y — and drove to University City to drop off supplies to Jessi Jacobs, a WashU senior who has been a client since her freshman year and was celebrating her 22nd birthday with a party at her apartment the following day. As requested by Jessi’s mother, Mindy was bringing all the fixings for a Bloody Mary bar and mimosas, including several bottles of champagne, vodka, fruit juices, paper goods, coolers for ice and lots of bottles of water for hydration. The next day she would arrive with bags of ice, birthday cake, flowers and whatever else Jessi’s mom had ordered. Eventually, Mindy would make a third trip to pick up the coolers, since they did, after all, belong to her.
As we neared the apartment, Mindy phoned Jessi to let her know we were almost there. She and a roommate met us at the front door, and together the four of us schlepped the supplies to the girls’ third-floor walk-up.
I quickly learned that it isn’t a proper visit from Mindy without an exchange of pleasantries and hugs — for Jessi, for her roommate, for whomever is around when receiving a Mindy delivery. Even I got caught up in the hug-fest.
After a brief stop home for Mindy to knead and braid her homemade dough into three challahs for Shabbat dinner, we were back at it, with a stop at Julia Zarkower’s apartment, also in U. City, to drop off medication and some Passover goodies. Then it was onto Jonah Kaufman’s place in Skinker-DeBaliviere for another Passover drop off, and of course, more hugs.
Julia is a relatively new client. She explained that after she went to the emergency room twice this spring and was having trouble getting the medication she needed, her mother reached out to Mindy.
“She knew of her services from a WashU parent’s page,” said Julia, a junior from Rye Brook, N.Y. “Mindy just jumped in right away and got me my prescriptions. She’s helped me get groceries when I was sick, and she dropped off all this Passover stuff.
“I just love her. It’s like having my own Jewish mother in St. Louis. She is the absolute best.”
Julia’s real-life mother, Sheri Zarkower, completely agrees.
“It was after Julia’s second trip to the ER when it became so stressful,” said Sheri. “I knew I wasn’t there, and I knew she would need assistance with getting medication and groceries and also having time to catch up on her schoolwork.
“Mindy has been terrific with all of her help. Had we been with her prior to when Julia went to the ER, Mindy could have potentially advocated for her (Julia). I certainly recommend Mindy before you are in a crisis.”
Part of what makes mindyKNOWS attractive to college students and their parents is Mindy herself. She’s equal parts kind, capable and nurturing, and rarely seems to get rattled despite all the running around she does in a day.
Those qualities are what she and her team look for in “other Mindys” as her business expands. MindyKNOWS, which has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on Fox News and NBC, has outposts at Northwestern, Skidmore and Hartford, and expects to be at a total of 11 college campuses this fall, including Iowa, USC and University of Wisconsin.
As for Mindy’s own family, I wondered what her sons thought about sharing their mother with so many others. So I turned to her eldest, Josh, 23, who runs a youth basketball program in New York City and happened to be home for the weekend. Here’s what he had to say:
“She started the business when I was a sophomore in college, and honestly when she started it, I was like, this is kind of annoying because I was at WashU and didn’t really want her on campus.
“But my mom is not like your average business owner. Not to be mean or anything, but she’s not the most business savvy person. She is a mom and I think it’s perfect because she is so passionate about what she is doing and so authentic. She is doing an incredible job.”
Mindy is the first to say that her services are not for everyone. She just knows from sending two of her three sons to college faraway that having a mom looking out for them brings a parent comfort. Just like her fresh-baked homemade challah brought me when she insisted that I take one of the loaves home for my family’s Shabbat dinner.
Happy Mother’s Day Mindy and to all you moms out there.
