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Uber for kids? New service coming to NYC this summer. – Metro US

Uber for kids? New service coming to NYC this summer.

Uber for kids? New service coming to NYC this summer.
Betsie Van Der Meer/Getty Images

Parents struggling to run their kids between after school activities in the city may soon have a new option – a service a bit like Uber for kids.

HopSkipDrive is a service founded by three moms, which first launched in Los Angeles in March this year. The company has plans to be up and running in New York City this summer.

“We have plans to expand into NYC but at this time, there is no set date,” the organizers told Metro.

One mom who has used the service in L.A. was full of praise.

“This service has been a game-changer, life-changer for me. I use it every day to shuttle my kids ages 11 and 14. I am a college counselor with Collegewise and am with students every afternoon when my kids need to get to activities or home from the bus stop. I needed something super reliable and safe so that I did not have to oversee it at my busiest time in the work day,” the woman wrote on the company’s Facebook page.

Janelle McGlothlin, one of the three moms who founded the company, graduated from the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania, and also runs a branding and copywriting firm on top of HopSkipDrive.

She has three kids – Gus, 8, Mattie, 5, and Ellie, 3, and knows perfectly well what it’s like to manage a complicated calendar every week. Between the three kids, there’s karate, gymnastics, dance and of course school.

McGlothin’s co-founders, Carolyn Yashari Becher and Joanna McFarland, have equally busy lives.

Yashari Becher is a lawyer and is on the board of non-profit organizations including the Neuromuscular Disease Foundation. Between her daughters Gabi,12, Maya, 9, and Ellie, 5, she finds herself running between school, gymnastics, tennis and camp.

McFarland, meanwhile, has an MBA from Stanford and also graduated from the Wharton School. Her sons, Jackson, 7, and Sam, 3, keep her extra busy with school, karate, T-ball and cub scouts.

The company says they thoroughly vet the drivers they choose via background checks and by requiring over five years of childcare experience.

Unfortunately, prices for the trips in New York are not yet clear – this may be a luxury accessible only to the upwardly mobile mom or dad.

But overscheduled parents around the city will surely be curious to see if it can make life just that little bit less hectic.