Building the HERD

Two lifelong friends are carving out space for women to be ‘herd.’

Amy Brendmoen and Gretchen Sage-Martinson met working as summer staff at YMCA Camp St. Croix in the late 1980s, and they’ve been friends since.
Sage-Martinson is a founder, teacher and administrator at the 25-year-old Avalon Charter School in St. Paul’s Midway.

Brendmoen served for 12 years on the St. Paul City Council representing north Central and east St. Paul, and is now working as a consultant. Prior experiences included advertising, communications, and policy advocate at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.

As they entered their 50s, they got the itch.

They wanted to help women find their voice. They were ready to embrace the role of elder and bring the herd together for safety, strength, and community.
It was something they’d been considering for awhile.

They had both told stories at a story slam and enjoyed the experience. So, they decided to host a storytelling event at the women’s retreat they regularly attended.

“It was incredible!” the two women recall. “We loved how a room full of women supported each other in a way that seemed different. The stories were bold, more vulnerable, and were received with enthusiasm, care, and love by the all-women audience.”

HERD MAGIC
They launched HERD last year, holding the first event in April 2025 at Urban Growler (2325 Endicott St.), the Cities’ first women-owned brewery. The theme was “Crash.”

“When we brought the HERD concept to the Cities last year, we wanted to make sure that it had that same special feel – a room of our own,” remarked Brendmoen and Sage-Martinson. “We want to make sure that these events are open to an expansive definition of ‘women-centered’ – so we focus more on who should sit it out, rather than who is allowed to come. We recognize that there are great men out there who want to participate, but these guys also understand that this is not the room for them.”

They initially aimed to hold four shows in 2025 in a 150-seat room. By the end of the year, they had held eight shows, with 2,300 attendees, and heard 80 women tell their stories.

Themes included Hairy, Boss, Busted, Present, Crush and Outside. They outgrew the Urban Growler space and held events at the YMCA Camp in Hudson, Wis., CHS Field in downtown St. Paul, The Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, and The O’Shaughnessy at St. Catherine’s University.

Brendmoen and Sage-Martinson weren’t sure that the events they had tested at the women’s multi-day retreat would translate into a single-evening experience.

“We had nothing to worry about,” they said. “The women coming to the shows are so ready to love and support anyone who steps on the stage, that the night feels just as special as the retreat-embedded events. When you are in a room full of women laughing uproariously together one moment, and wiping tears away together the next, it is pretty magical.”

Following each storyteller, another woman who has volunteered gives feedback and shares what stood out to her, a component that seeks to build up the individual who has just been vulnerable.

VALUE OF WOMEN-ONLY SPACES
“The value of women-only storytelling, for me, centers on the authenticity and safety of our sharing deeply with one another,” observed Melissa Borgmann, owner of Cafe Marguerite in northeast Minneapolis. ”Something shifts when males exit the room. I can’t say that is true 100% of the time, but I’ve known the value and intimacy I experience in the sacred setting of women-only spaces. HERD embodies and extends this experience for community.”

Borgmann is one of 76 founding HERD members. She hosts the workshops offered prior to storytelling events.

“Gretchen and Amy offer a safe and judgement-free workshop experience where your story is given space to breathe and take shape and grow in form. Being listened to so deeply in a one-on-one or one-of-six circle space is a gift of vulnerability and insight. I want it for every woman I know,” Borgmann said. “When we tell our stories, we claim their power and inspiration in the world. We work at reframing and offering ourselves to others that helps shape and empower others.”

At HERD, women get to ponder: What is my narrative? How do I want to own and tell this story?

“We are delighted to be part of the process of taking a story idea, working with a crew of women to help guide it towards what really needs to be said, and bring it to the stage when it’s a living, breathing thing that exists between the storyteller and the world’s best audience,” said Brendmoen and Sage-Martinson.

‘PRESSURE,’ A WOMEN'S SPORTS EDITION 
The Womens Sports Edition on April 28, 2026 at Mia in Minneapolis was sponsored by the Minnesota Vikings, Minnesota United FC, LOVB Minnesota Volleyball, the Frost, the Lynx, the Aurora, the Gemini, the Strike, High School Girls Flag Football League, and these women-owned businesses: Beehive Strategic Communication, Voliere Spirits, Urban Growler Brewing, and A Bar of Their Own.

“One of our long-term goals is to help position Minneapolis as #1 for women’s sports. We know that we have the receipts – the teams, the championships, the legacy, the infrastructure, the participation in women’s sports, A Bar of Their Own (women’s sports bar), the globally-renowned Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women’s Sports at the University of Minnesota – and can make the claim at a national level, but we all need to lean in and continue to foster the culture and excitement around women’s sports within our community,” observed Abby Poeske of Meet Minneapolis. “So when HERD came to us saying they wanted to partner on a special edition, we felt that it aligned with the work to support grassroots, community-based efforts to highlight women’s sports and ultimately advance our goal.”

Suzette Schommer has been to all of the HERD events and took the stage as a storyteller during the athletic-themed, “Pressure,” event.

From an identity standpoint, Schommer said she land in the boots of athlete more than anything else. “Being able to share a story from that part of my identity, among women who were there to celebrate exactly that aspect of me and of other women, was exhilarating,” she stated.

While Schommer expected to hear fun stories about women and sports that night, what she didn’t expect was the wide variety of stories and storytellers that allowed her to expand her own view of what women and sports mean

“The talent and strength and determination of women, on full display, in spaces that have often only been reserved for men, is extraordinarily valuable," Schommer said. “It’s a metaphor for the boardroom or the oval office. So many professionally successful women I know were serious athletes; I don’t think that’s an accident. It was a space where being competitive, where learning to pick yourself up after defeat and try again, where honing mental toughness and acuity, where teamwork and collaboration, were not only celebrated, but were essential to what makes an athlete successful.”

Jillian Hiscock, owner of A Bar of Their Own, was both event sponsor and a storyteller. She was looking forward to hearing the different takes on the idea of ‘pressure’ that the storytellers experienced as it relates to sports, and knew the room would be full of women passionate about the same things she was.

“My expectations were absolutely exceeded, as it felt like a big ol’ family reunion of many of the best women in and around sports that I know, in addition to new connections who collectively listened to stories that were funny, dramatic, and inspirational,” said Hiscock. “It was truly a magical evening!”

She added, “There are so many places in society – politics, business, healthcare – where decisions made directly impact women, but so few women are involved in the decision making process. Giving space for women to tell their own stories in their own voice exemplifies ‘taking power back’ and builds confidence in the uniqueness and validity of our experiences. This is actually a core tenant of the work we do at ABOTO – ensuring that women are the ones telling the history and writing the future surrounding women’s sports.
“Our stories are meaningful and important to the overall ecosystem – we simply often lack the space to share them.”

MORE SHOWS – AND A PODCAST
The 2026/27 season includes six shows planned as the HERD baseline: July 14, Sept. 23, Dec. 2, Feb. 10, 2027 and April 15, 2027. More details at https://www.youareherd.org/.

They plan to fill in the calendar with more niche shows after the “wildly successful” Women’s Sports Edition held at Mia, and will continue to populate the online calendar as these shows are set.

“I can’t wait to see where HERD goes from here,” said Schommer.

The HERD: the Podcast launched in May, first with a fundraiser and then the first show dropped. These episodes are 30 minutes and have three stories: a warm up tale from Brendmoen or Sage-Martinson, a call back story from a past show, and an ‘untold” story that’s a podcast exclusive-plus lots of feedback and banter.

“We’re excited to explore and develop this new format as we continue to build the HERD,” stated Brendmoen and Sage-Martinson.

Those who contributed to the fundraiser to launch the podcast will help off-set the cost of production. Contributors get early access to HERD live show tickets, which sell out quickly.

Want to get involved? Sign up for the mailing list, attend a show, buy some merch, tell a story, come to a workshop, volunteer to be a feedback-giver at HERD, listen to and share the podcast, or sponsor an episode of the podcast, encourage Brendmoen and Sage-Martinson. “Come to us with your cool ideas on what we should do next!”

More at https://www.youareherd.org/.