TodayTree House haven for grocery-shopping moms
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The Tree House at Giant Food Stores offers a great place for moms to leave their kids while trying to get some grocery shopping done — and maybe while getting a little “me” time. (Courtesy of Giant Food Stores)
We’d gotten to a breaking point. My son, Eli, would no longer sit in the cart during shopping trips, and I hadn’t quite mastered the art of reading labels and keeping an eye on him.
Some trips ended in me chasing him up and down the aisles (you’d be surprised how fast a preschooler can run). Other times I managed to restrain him in the top seat of the cart, resulting in tears for him and sympathetic looks from other shoppers for me.
But when Eli finally turned 3, our grocery trip traumas abruptly ended, all thanks to the magic of the Tree House.
If you’re a West Shore parent with a kid under age 9, you probably already know about the Tree House. If you don’t, well, you want to.
The Tree House is a babysitting service provided by Giant Food Stores at its Camp Hill store, as well as 19 others across the chain, including locations in Virginia and Maryland as well as Pennsylvania.
It’s free to Giant bonus card holders. Here’s how it works: You sign-in your child and leave him or her for up to 90 minutes while you get your shopping done uninterrupted; you must always stay inside the store and carry a pager with you in case of an emergency or a kid who needs a bathroom break.
The service is available for kids ages 3 to 9, and there’s a limit on the number of children who can be left at the Tree House at one time.
“It gives moms a really nice break,” says Tracy Pawelski, director of public and community relations at Giant Food Stores and Martin’s Food Markets. “We just ask that they don’t go running down to King of Prussia mall to go shopping,” she jokes.
My husband teases me because I now turn shopping into a little me time. I buy some tea, get a biscotti, and take my time comparing prices and running through my coupon book. He can tease all he wants – since I started leaving Eli at the Tree House, we’ve saved loads of money through smarter shopping and more coupon usage. And I really enjoy the tea.
Apparently I’m not the only one.
“Parents love it, kids love it,” Pawelski says. “In fact, at many of our stores we have regulars. They come at the same time every Wednesday, for example. In many cases, it’s moms meeting with other moms. They sit to have a cup of coffee in our Wi-Fi café, then do their shopping.”
Eli loves it, too. Months before he was old enough to go into the Tree House, he would hang around outside its doors, trying to catch a glimpse of the movie playing on the TV or the game the kids were playing in the faux kitchen. When I drop him off, he can’t get inside fast enough.
The Tree House offers a rotation of different crafts and activities for the kids, often tied into the season or an outreach program, like raising awareness of CHIP, the state’s children’s health insurance program.
Giant does its best to address any safety concerns upfront. Kids and adults receive bracelets tagged with the same ID numbers so that no children can be checked out by a person other than the one who dropped them off. Pictures of kids and parents are also taken on their initial visit and stored in the computer for staff reference.
Tree House staff members all have previous experience working with kids and all undergo criminal background checks and drug testing, plus receive CPR and first aid training. No other Giant staff members are allowed in the Tree House.
“We have been very careful to put all the safeguards in place that would give our parents the confidence they need to have their kids stay and play with us,” Pawelski says.
The Tree House is hardly the only program of its kind in the country, or even the immediate area. Mechanicsburg’s Wegman’s has a similar program (though kids can stay for just 60 minutes versus the 90 at Giant), and other chains have instituted such programs in other parts of the country. Still, Giant was among the first when the Camp Hill store debuted in 2005.
It’s the sort of extra that ensures customers like me will keep going there, even though it’s hardly the closest grocery store to my house. It’s nice to know that while I shop, Eli’s having fun – fun that doesn’t involve me chasing him up and down the aisles.
Toni Fitzgerald is the mother of one. She welcomes questions for future parenting columns about kids, families and staying sane in the presence of both. You can contact her at tonifitz@yahoo.com
