A children’s song fills a community room at the Avondale Library in Birmingham. Little ones gather for story time, some sitting in their fathers’ laps while others stand nearby, singing along. Around the room, dads keep a watchful eye on their children, coffee in hand, diaper bags close by. Some have strollers. Others are already deep in conversation with men they might not have known a few months ago.
On this recent Saturday, the room has a pirate theme. The children play, explore and learn to say, “Shiver me timbers!” while their fathers get something of their own: a few hours in the company of men who understand what it means to raise young children.
For some, it’s a chance to make friends in a new city. For others, it’s a place to talk through the joys and frustrations of fatherhood without having to explain why either can feel overwhelming.
And for Marc Pierre, the man who brought them together, it’s the kind of community he was searching for when he first became a father.
“Fatherhood is really, really difficult,” Pierre said. “I think I was experiencing a kind of bout of loneliness and looking for other fathers to connect with.”
Finding home in a new city
Pierre is from Brooklyn, New York, and his path to Birmingham began on a New York City subway platform, where he met his wife, Maya Posey-Pierre, a Birmingham native.
The couple married during the COVID-19 pandemic and moved to Ethiopia for a two-year work contract while trying to start a family. Two months into that contract, Posey-Pierre became pregnant and wanted to return home to Birmingham. Pierre agreed.
“So I moved down to Birmingham for love and didn’t know anybody," he said.
He was adjusting to a new city and the demands of being a father, all while trying to find a community of his own.
After his son, Miles, was born, Pierre began writing letters to him about fatherhood. At first, the letters were private, a way to work through his thoughts and emotions. Eventually, he shared them publicly online, connecting with other fathers around the country.
Those connections helped him realize he wasn’t the only dad trying to make sense of the transition.
Fatherhood brought him joy, but it also changed his routines, his relationships and the ways he spent his time. He wanted to meet other men experiencing that same shift — fathers who wanted to be present with their children and who understood that being an active parent could be both rewarding and exhausting.
He began looking for ways to bring those men together in person.
Pierre noticed other cities had established communities for fathers, but he wasn’t finding the kind of gathering he wanted in Birmingham. So he started posting about the idea on Reddit and through his Substack, Raising Myles. He made small cards with a simple message for other fathers that read, "Hey Dad, you’re doing a great job."
The response became the beginning of the Birmingham Dad Meetup.
The group held an early pilot gathering with friends at a museum in December 2025 then began meeting regularly at the Avondale Library in January 2026.
The library became an important partner. Its staff helped create a welcoming space for children, setting up toys, story time and activities that change with each month’s theme. The arrangement gives the dads room to talk while their children play nearby.
The gatherings run from 10 a.m. to noon on a Saturday each month. Attendance varies, but Pierre said the group typically draws between five and a dozen fathers.
He wants to keep the gatherings intimate even as word spreads.
“I think what ends up happening is things get so big that we sacrifice the intimacy,” Pierre said. “And it’s nice, the fact that it feels small and intimate.”
For him, the goal isn’t to put a group of dads in the same room. It’s to give them a reason to keep showing up for one another.
A place to realize you’re not alone
Zach Bohnenkamp found the group on Reddit after moving to Birmingham. He didn’t know many people in the area and saw the meetup as an opportunity to make connections while spending time with his two children, ages 4 and 2.
Nearly a year later, he’s still showing up.
His children look forward to the gatherings, he said, and he enjoys meeting other fathers who are navigating many of the same experiences.
His wife encouraged him to attend, even on the occasions when he considered skipping.
What keeps him coming back is more than a children’s activity or a break from the usual weekend routine.
“It makes you feel not so isolated,” Bohnenkamp said. “Like there’s other people who are going through what you’re going through, whether it’s good or bad. So you’re like, okay, I’m not alone in this.”
That feeling of isolation is familiar to Stephen Cullen, another member of the group.
Cullen moved to Birmingham about 15 years ago after graduating from college. He made some connections over the years, but much of his work takes place at home. When he and his wife recently adopted their daughter, he found himself looking for a community of other fathers.
He came across Pierre’s post on Reddit and was drawn to the idea.
Cullen said many parenting events are geared toward mothers or take place during the workweek, when fathers working traditional schedules may not be able to attend. By the time the weekend arrives, opportunities to meet other parents can be limited. This gathering is different — one designed around fathers and scheduled at a time that works for them.
“The opportunity to connect, make friends, and have support being a new dad was something," Cullen said. "How [are] you gonna make it without that kind of thing?”
He appreciates the group isn’t rigid. Fathers can bring their children, let them play and get to know one another at their own pace. Pierre has also encouraged members to think beyond the monthly meetings, with ideas for picnics, social gatherings and time together without the children.
For Justin Williams, who has been involved since the beginning, the exchange of experiences is central to the group’s value.
Williams said while Pierre first floated the idea for the meetup to a few friends, it has since grown into a diverse mix of fathers, bringing different backgrounds, perspectives and parenting experiences to the table.
“It’s very valuable for dads just to have a community to really come and share ideas, share best practices, share cultural differences that we all can implement in our own day-to-day walk with our kids,” Williams said.
The fathers come from across the Birmingham area, including Pleasant Grove, Homewood, Avondale and Mountain Brook. Some are longtime locals. Others, like Pierre, moved to the area and are still building their networks.
Their lives may look different outside the library. But when their children are playing together, Pierre said, the distinctions that often separate adults take a back seat.
“When our kids get in the room at the dad meetup, they don’t see those things,” he said.
He sees the gathering as a reminder of what can happen when people start with the things they share rather than the things that divide them.
What do the moms think?
The meetup also offers something to the people who share parenting responsibilities with the men who attend.
A Saturday morning gathering can means a partner gets a little time to rest, catch up on other responsibilities or simply enjoy some time alone, knowing the children are with their dad in a welcoming environment.
But Maya Posey-Pierre didn’t fully appreciate what the meetup had become until she saw it in person in September.
“I was really blown away because there were kids everywhere playing, and the dads were talking to each other,” she said. “And you could tell that they weren’t just meeting each other for the first time.”
She said the fathers seemed comfortable with one another, talking in small groups while their children played around them. It was a visible sign that the relationships Pierre had hoped to foster were taking hold.
Posey-Pierre, who is accustomed to parenting spaces and activities geared toward mothers, said fathers need places where their involvement in their children’s lives is recognized and encouraged, rather than treated as an afterthought.
“We desire for y’all to be in an environment that feels like it is celebrating and honoring the role that you play as fathers,” she said. “I think that that can get lost.”
She also appreciates that Pierre’s work gives other families an opportunity to experience the kind of support he was seeking for himself.
“I had no idea that this would be what it is today,” she said. “I’m just always like, wow, he did what he said he was gonna do. So I’m just very proud of him for doing that.”
Building something the next generation can lean on
Pierre hopes to keep creating opportunities for fathers to connect outside their usual routines. But he has a longer-term vision.
He wants the group to become a mentorship program where experienced fathers can build relationships with younger dads, spend time together with their children and share what they’ve learned along the way.
That goal is rooted in Pierre’s relationship with his father.
He said he doesn’t have a good relationship with his dad, but he wonders how that relationship might have been different if his father had men to support him, encourage him and help him navigate parenthood.
“If my dad had a community of fathers who was pouring into him, he would have been that much better of a father to me,” Pierre said.
The next gathering on Saturday, Oct. 17 will take the group out of the library and into nearby Avondale Park. It's a picnic and, unlike the regular meetup, which centers on dads and their children, other family members can join in.
A year ago, Pierre was looking for a community to help Birmingham feel more like home.
Now, he’s helping other fathers find one, too.
