They’ll Sit While You Go

Black-owned business provides care for infants, elderly, pets ... whatever

Nicole Henry’s idea was simple.  She wanted to provide a service that virtually everyone needs.  Yet the niche she now fills was largely unoccupied prior to the foundation of Salem Sitters, LLC in 2006.

Salem Sitters is just what the name implies – a sitter service.  Through it, Henry and Co-Owner Lisa Jenkins provide a breadth of services under four main categories – baby sitting, house sitting, pet sitting and elder care.

The company, which the women have operated from Henry’s home since its inception, has a reserve of more than 75 sitters available for dispatch to over 200 homes, churches and businesses across the Triad.

Both mothers themselves, Henry and Jenkins put each sitter through rigorous screenings, background checks and training to ensure that they are suitable to be entrusted with some of life’s most precious gifts.

“ As a mother, you kind of know what you want in a sitter,” Henry said.  “ Lisa and I are very particular.”

The vast majority of the sitters hail from the student populations of local colleges, but retirees also make up a considerable portion of the sitter pool, Jenkins says.

Henry formed the company at the urging of friends in Ohio who had started a similar effort there.  She began by offering her services strictly to private homes.

Henry says she knew right away she would need help to get the small company up and running.

“I knew no matter what, I couldn’t do it alone,” she said.  “Lisa was hands down my first choice.”

Even early on, the women say they knew they had stumbled upon something great.

“The best thing for me is knowing that the people we send out are quality people,” Jenkins remarked.  “I couldn’t sleep at night if I didn’t know the sitters we send are good ones.”

Managing the company allowed Henry, mother of four, and Jenkins, mother of two, the flexibility both say they craved for their families.

Henry, a former recruiter for Wake Forest Medical School, says the grueling schedule she kept wasn’t conducive to the quickly-growing family she nurtured at home.

For Jenkins, a longtime homemaker, Salem Sitters offered a fresh start in the business world without demanding that she relinquish the freedom she had become so accustomed to in the decade she had spent raising her children.

“I was a stay-at-home mom and after being at home for eight to 10 years, I was looking for something to do,” she explained.  “I was praying for something I could do at home.  This was a business I could believe in.”

The service offers the sitters, who are independent contractors not employees of the company, the same luxuries, Jenkins says.

“The beauty of being a sitter is you work around your schedule,” she remarked.

It offers the families that use it peace of mind, she added.

As parents themselves, the women say they are well versed on the anxiety that may come with leaving a child in the care of a stranger.  Henry takes it upon herself to test potential sitters.

“I use my kids as guinea pigs,” she revealed.  “I’m not going to send anybody I wouldn’t use myself.”

In the early days, Jenkins and Henry say they did much of the legwork themselves, filling in as substitutes for daycare teachers, staffing nurseries and providing transportation and companionship for elderly customers.

Today, their work is largely managerial, but both women say they will quickly fill in in a pinch.

As for the company, the sky’s the limit; Henry says it has already exceeded her expectations.

“To me, it’s just a miracle, God’s miracle, just to see it from start to finish,” she said.  “It has grown tremendously … it just amazes me everyday.”