Nurturing ‘Catholic Sprouts’: Nancy Bandzuch’s mission to empower Catholic parents

Nancy Bandzuch is hunkered down in the closet, beneath the spare sheets and above her MacBook and microphone, her curly dark hair swept back, ready to seize her toddler’s naptime and record another podcast that will soon travel from her Delano home to Catholic families across the globe.

The closet, it turns out, is the ideal recording studio for this busy mom. “Hanging clothes all around you is really good for acoustics,” Bandzuch says with a laugh.

It’s a metaphor for her ability to make the most of real life, embracing the good-enough rather than waiting idly for perfect circumstances. The result is formidable: The 39-year-old entrepreneur works magic from the closet, with the help of modern technology, a wealth of experience and plenty of grace.

Her 2-year-old “Catholic Sprouts” podcast, a daily podcast to teach kids about Catholicism and the flagship product of her growing ministry, has been downloaded more than 3 million times. Her inbox teems with messages from far-flung parents and teachers who are grateful for the press-and-play catechism plug-in.

The closet is also an explanation for Bandzuch’s success: She’s not isolated in a pristine studio, she’s fully immersed in motherhood, and she’s sharing from that perspective, working in a green one-story home filled with five kids and “2 million Legos.”

It’s that humor and humility that makes Bandzuch so relatable. When it comes to the evangelization of children, her “If we can do it, you can do it” attitude shines through. That’s precisely her goal.

“I was feeling a failure to catechize my children as I assumed I would,” she said, recalling her struggles early in parenthood. “Life kind of got in the way. Things were hard. I would lose my temper.”

From the beginning, parenthood proved harder than she expected. Transitioning from her outside job to becoming a stay-at-home mom at 29 was not smooth. As a teacher, she’d received incredible feedback. Suddenly her boss was a newborn baby. Her mission was no longer to educate a classroom of children but to change the diapers of one.

“It’s hard to let go of that external validation,” Bandzuch said.

The example of St. Therese of Lisieux took on new meaning: to do small things with love and grow closer to Jesus through those little efforts.

“I’m such a devotee of the Little Way and the idea that I can do the most mundane tasks and that it matters,” she said. “It opened up motherhood to me.”

Babies followed in rapid succession: Gus, now 9; Bernadette, 8; Dominic, 6; Josephine, 4; a beloved stillborn baby named Max, whom they lost in late 2017; and George, 2.

All the while, Bandzuch has clung to the Little Way. “When I’m struggling, when my kid’s not listening, when there’s the drudgery of motherhood — that’s so intertwined with my life.”

It was a balm for the melancholic mom, who describes herself as “a deep feeler, a deep thinker, a closet crier.”

Also life-giving: her habit of praying the rosary each day when she puts a baby down for a nap. That quiet time of nursing and rocking has always felt like the perfect time to be “united with Mary,” she said. She’s come to depend on the “spiritual protection.”

Filling a void

The idea of a Catholic ministry for parents had been slowly taking root, but the impetus came when she delivered her stillborn son and felt a strong presence of Mary in the hospital room.

“My husband and I felt transformed,” she said.

A few months later, she reassessed her online presence and surveyed the Catholic media landscape.

The charge to be her children’s “primary teachers” of the faith, as articulated in the Catechism, felt daunting — and there was so little practical support to do so.

“If we’re going to claim that every home is a domestic church — that’s beautiful, but how? You put this big burden on my shoulders, that my family will renew the Church, but you don’t have any guidance for me to do that!”

When she did find advice on evangelization, it came from parents of 10 grown kids who attended the Triduum Mass and behaved perfectly. While she admired them, she didn’t relate.

A parishioner of St. Maximilian Kolbe in Delano (where her children attend the parish school), Bandzuch felt called to help fill the “big gaping hole.” She craved a simple solution: something she could press play on to inject kid-friendly Catholic instruction into her home on a daily basis. A fan of audio books, she envisioned a podcast that would feel intimate.

If she could make a podcast simply to benefit her own kids, it would be worthwhile. “Even if it’s only us listening over breakfast, at least I can send them to school each day confident that I’d fulfilled my duty to catechize,” she said.

It all tied back to St. Therese, the Little Flower, and the idea of planting seeds of faith in children — hence the name “Catholic Sprouts.”

“We put it out into the world,” she said. “We didn’t market it. We didn’t expect anything.”

The positive feedback came more quickly and enthusiastically than she ever imagined. “That’s been a huge confirmation that this was needed, and that I wasn’t the only one failing to catechize my children.”

More than two years later, the podcast has garnered enduring popularity. Averaging five minutes in length and released each weekday, it can be listened to through Apple, Google Play, Sticher and YouTube. Each podcast explores an aspect of Catholicism — liturgical seasons, saints, virtues, commandments — and ends with a challenge.

Learning new technologies and keeping up with new platforms is part of the gig. “If I need to figure something out, someone made a YouTube about (it),” Bandzuch said. “Sometimes, I feel like our site is held together with Scotch tape, but it’s working.”

Though most people first discover Catholic Sprouts through the podcast, many are now connected through a private Facebook group that numbers 7,000. “It’s the nicest place on the internet!” Bandzuch said.

They find other resources on the website (catholicsprouts.com), including a small shop and patches that resemble embroidered scouting badges. They reward kids for completing certain challenges such as a commitment to the Rosary, to adoration, to learning about Scripture and to performing works of mercy.

Memories of her early struggles in motherhood color the language. “We believe that all Catholic parents need support, resources, community and inspiration,” the site states. “And we believe that teaching the Catholic faith can (and should) be fun and rewarding work.”

What that looks like varies by family. For Bandzuch, it does not involve glue. “I do not love liturgical crafts. I’m a big fan of stories! My favorite part of the day is doing a read-aloud novel right before bed. I’m the one saying, ‘Can we do one more chapter?’”

She’s read the “Little House on the Prairie” series by Laura Ingalls Wilder and “The Birchbark House” series, written by Louise Erdrich to chronicle the 19th century from the Ojibwe perspective.

Learning about saints lights up Bandzuch, who keeps a huge stack of saint biographies by her bed. “I’m always looking for new types of saints. Earlier this year we dove into Black saints. I felt like that was a real need in the world, to celebrate some of those amazing saints.”

Modern saints, in particular, inspire her. “It’s so powerful to say, ‘You can be a saint and not living in a medieval castle.’ That’s a wake-up call to me. Sainthood is here and now.”

Her voracious reading is supplemented with podcasts, including “The Bible in a Year” by Duluth priest Father Mike Schmitz.

“I cannot believe I’d enjoy listening to Leviticus so much!” she said. “It’s baffling! Sometimes I’ll go to a further grocery store just so I can have an extra 10 minutes to listen to a podcast.”

Bandzuch’s desire to learn more about her faith and to share it is “insatiable,” said her husband, Bill, who works in accounting.

“Nancy is always in action,” he said. “It’s truly the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that keeps her moving.”

He marvels over the many ways God prepared her for this ministry. First, there were the years of speech, which she participated in during high school and college. It honed her engaging speaking style that makes the podcast so effective. Then came her teaching career, when she learned how to break down difficult material for children.

The next step

Her innate curiosity and professional experience received a practical boost when Our Sunday Visitor issued a Catholic Innovators challenge. Bandzuch won and received a grant to build her latest endeavor, The Domestic Church Project, along with an app.

The Domestic Church Project is a six-week training program to teach parents how to talk about the faith. The launch happened earlier this year, at a time when the Bandzuch family was pulled away to be with Bill’s dying sister. Still, it generated amazing results: 800 families have already signed up.

“The one thing I learned is that when you accept the Holy Spirit is your coworker, you expect that he pulls his weight,” Bandzuch said. “And if he doesn’t, there’s a lot of peace in knowing that.”

It gives her a relaxed attitude about her work. “If it’s going to be, it’s going to be. It makes selling things, like a six-week program, a lot easier. There’s not desperation.”

That attitude is evident in her parenting too. “I’m definitely Type B or C or D,” she said. “I’m not a big planner.”

It translates to the kids’ extracurriculars pursuits, which she and Bill try to limit to one activity at a time.

The experience of quarantining during COVID and cutting off all outside activities illustrated the beauty of time together as a family and simple playtime outside.

“When the pandemic hit and suddenly there were no kid activities or pressure to sign up for them, I secretly rejoiced,” she said.

Bandzuch grew up “running wild” on a cattle farm outside Marshall and she’s happy to let her kids do the same. Their backyard overlooks a big park and fields, so her children are able roam. As more vaccinations are offered and regular activities resume, Bandzuch plans to be “more selective” about what they join.

Connecting with other Catholic parents continues to be a solace. She receives thousands of emails from parents, and she relishes the opportunity to correspond with them. But she’s not going to weigh in on sleep training.

“I hear from brand-new moms and dads, and they’re asking really specific questions for advice. I never give those things. There’s plenty of advice available online. I’ve realized through a lot of trial and error that the way my domestic church runs here is going to be radically different from the next person. God’s imprint on them is different. Instead of scouring the blogs for the right tips, I should be spending my time praying the rosary and asking for the humility to keep going.”

She doesn’t hesitate, though, to share her shortcomings. That helps her appeal to all parents, whether they’re traditional Catholics or spiritual nomads. “I have found that what attracts people is when you’re willing to show your brokenness. When you say, ‘I’m not perfect. I lose my cool with my kids, but I’m still Catholic. I’m still trying. Whether you’re standing in front of icons or not, if you’re willing to be honest about who you are, that’s all that matters.”

Meanwhile, Bandzuch has endless material to share through Catholic Sprouts. She sees her faith as a vast treasure, and getting to showcase a new jewel each day revs her up.

“As Catholics, we get to stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before us,” she said. “We get to take JPII and St. Therese or St. Catherine of Siena — these beautiful concepts that come to us through prayer, we have these things to use. I love to take those things and reimagine them in a way that will interact with every age in a family. How can I take the concept of the Little Way and maybe write a new story about it? Or take some of the deeper concepts of JPII’s Theology of the Body and make it something fresh and totally accessible? That’s my passion. I just find it so exciting as a Catholic that we have access to these deep truths and we’re invited to make something beautiful with them.”