Mommy Scrubs Wins eosera Foundation Pitch Competition

Working as an occupational therapist in 2018, McKinney’s Cherie Turner returned from maternity leave to make an uncomfortable discovery: Pumping breastmilk at her healthcare job often meant fully undressing, her back against a cold chair. That bracing inconvenience sparked her idea for a line of healthcare workers’ scrubs designed specifically for breastfeeding and pumping moms.

Flash forward to last Thursday night. As CEO and founder of Mommy Scrubs, Turner won the fourth annual eosera Foundation Pitch Competition at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, snagging the $30,000 first place award and the $5,000 people’s choice award.

The winning prize was announced onstage by NBC 5 Anchor Deborah Ferguson.

“I am just overjoyed and overwhelmed with gratitude,” Turner said in a statement. “This is just a perfect, right-on-time blessing for Mommy Scrubs.”

The competition invites women founders with businesses fewer than three years old to apply. This year, three finalists were selected from more than 250 applicants nationwide.

This year’s two other finalists were Annika Lundstrom, CEO of New York City-based ReMinded, a startup commercializing the first clinical-grade, rapid saliva test that tracks cortisol, the body’s stress hormone; and Melissa Wood, CEO of Formus, an AI tool that saves time and money for home design professionals.

Mayor kicked off the event

Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker kicked off last week’s event, the first year the competition was opened to women outside the state of Texas.

“You cannot be a world class city without pouring into the next generation of leaders, and it does start with the bedrock of the U.S. economy, which is small businesses and entrepreneurs,” Parker said at the event, noting that it takes “tremendous guts and bravery to build a business from scratch.”

Elyse Stoltz Dickerson, founder and CEO of Fort Worth-based ear care brand eosera, won a pitch competition herself a decade ago for her company, which is now a multi-million-dollar business.

“Each year the pitch competition just tops the year before in energy and excitement,” she said in a statement. “I always walk away feeling so inspired by the finalists and energized by the audience who came to support them. It’s truly my favorite night of the year.”

Next step for Mommy Scrubs

To develop Mommy Scrubs, Turner tested and designed new scrubs that snap down in the front for easy pumping access, while maintaining the standard function of scrubs in a healthcare setting. Until now, her patent-pending design has been rolled out to a small audience. She plans to use the funding to help maker the next step to paid marketing.

“We’ll be able to put Mommy Scrubs in front of the faces who need it, so we’re really excited to start our paid marketing efforts and more people will know about Mommy Scrubs,” Turner said.

ReMinded’s Lundstrom won second place in the competition, taking home $5,000.

“It was a much larger event than I expected,” Lundstrom said in a statement. “And it’s just great to see this type of traction that the [women entrepreneur] community is gaining now. I felt that this event just gave us that extra push of powering through the last months of 2025 and going into a strong 2026.”

Formus’ Wood took third place and received $2,500.

“As they say, 2% of women get venture capital funding, so opportunities like this mean the world, and I just appreciate having the stage to share my company,” Wood said.

This year’s competition was sponsored by iHeartImpact, Simmons Bank, Higginbotham, and Satori Capitol, along with “many other” Fort Worth businesses who pitched in for a drawing valued at over $2,000, the foundation said.