Column by Pete Martin
Published Oct. 20, 2015
Upstate Parent magazine

—

Today, we will birth our new baby.

OK, not literally — no one on the Upstate Parent team is expecting as far as I know — but to us it kind of feels that way.

It’s not a boy or a girl.

At 3 p.m. today, Oct. 20, 2015, the new Upstate Parent website goes live, and we’re more than a little excited. We think you will be too, for several reasons.

For the first time ever, Upstate Parent has its own standalone website. That means when you visit www.upstateparent.com you’ll see only content related to Upstate Parent. Stories will focus on parenting, education, health and wellness, food and nutrition, and things to do with your kids.

With the new site, we were also able to organize content into five pages: Parenting, Things to Do, Movies & Videos, Let’s Eat and Health. You’ll find tabs for these in a black bar that runs across the top of all our pages.

Parenting, our home page, is where you’ll find stories about parenting, education, family-friendly businesses, local moms and dads, and important parenting news such as recalls. You’ll also find our Renaissance Mom column on this page.

Things to Do includes our ever-popular calendar events (now in an easier-to-read format), travel destinations, day trips, and other places and things you can do and explore with your children.

Let’s Eat is where you’ll find everything food and nutrition related. Want to know what restaurants offer kids meal deals? You’ll find that here, along with lots of family-friendly restaurant reviews, recipes, nutrition stories and more.

Our Health page is where you’ll find our health and wellness content, including Jenna Kochenauer’s Building Balance family fitness column, our Ask the Expert question-and-answer feature and timely health feature stories.

We also have Movies & Videos, a page devoted to staff writer Angie Campbell’s super-popular movie and video reviews. Now, in addition to reading her latest review or preview, you’ll have easy access to many of her past stories. Not sure if “Monkey Kingdom” is a good fit for your kids? Find out the answer on our new website. Want to know more about that latest Care Bears video? Angie has you covered.

Our new site works equally well on your PC or Mac, smartphone and tablet. The site is picture driven, but we’ve tried to make the pictures and headlines work together to give you a good idea of what a story will be about once you click on an image or headline.

Quick Links down the left side of our homepage gives easy access to our online e-edition flipbook-style magazine, our contest entry form and The Greenville News website. You’ll also find links to recent photo galleries, and we will soon use this area to add our annual camp and birthday guides.

Whether you are looking for the latest information about vaccinations or in search of something to do this weekend, we intend for our newly redesigned UpstateParent.com — along with our print magazine, Facebook and Twitter pages — to be The Upstate’s No. 1 Resource for Families.

We hope you agree.