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Daynna Dixon knows how difficult it is to be a mother of twins. So when she saw another mother leaving Joe's Movement Emporium in Mount Rainier while cradling twin babies as another child trailed behind, Dixon knew she had to start a mother's support group, and soon.

"She was just at her wit's end and the light bulb went off: You know what? There's mothers all over the world like this," said Dixon, a mother of twin 11-year-olds and a 13-year-old.

Dixon and members of The Collective, a Port Towns-based nonprofit, are working to create a space for mothers to connect, share stories and organize in making changes in the Port Towns, which comprise Edmonston, Bladensburg, Cottage City and Colmar Manor.

The Port Towns mothers' circle, currently in the planning stages, will eventually join the National Association of Mothers' Centers. There is no chapter in Prince George's County. The group's next planning meeting is at noon Saturday at the Bladensburg Town Hall. Three people have spent the past seven months researching and planning to start the group.

Dixon, a Mount Rainier resident, said there is a lack of support groups for mothers in the area. In the Port Towns there is no Mocha Moms, a nonprofit group that sponsors informal gatherings of mothers who discuss relevant issues. However, there is a northern Prince George's County chapter of the group, which the national Mocha Moms Web site lists as being one of three of the groups in the county.

Afi Lydia, a Hyattsville mother of three, said a mothers' circle would provide a support base for single mothers like herself. One of the biggest issues she faces is finding affordable groceries, and she's interested in creating a co-op of mothers who can buy directly from farms.

Lydia's twin 9-year-olds also want to participate in recreational and extracurricular activities like tennis and dancing, which she says she can't always afford.

"I have to make the decision between a livelihood and extracurricular things," she said.

The Collective co-founder Yerodin Avent, whose wife, Yaa Avent, is also helping with the planning, said a mothers' circle would add to future development plans in the Port Towns.

"For the most part is seems that the focus is on the physical development," he said. "We want to add the people part, the social part."

Port Towns Community Development Corp. Executive Director Sadara Barrow said such a group would add to the group's "holistic approach of all trying to take care of a piece of the puzzle."

The Port Towns CDC has a seven- to 10-year partnership with Kaiser Permanente to promote active living and healthy lifestyles. It could open a wellness center at the Riverview on the Anacostia Waterfront development in Colmar Manor, which is slated to be complete in a few years.

The Port Towns CDC will spend the next year-and-a-half drafting an action plan with Kaiser Permanente, and will call on community organizations and partners to offer input, including the mothers' circle, once it's active. The group could be a natural catalyst for involving mothers, Barrow said.

"[The mothers' circle] is not just supporting the mothers, but also hearing and getting mothers' point of view on how things could be better and how things could improve," she said.

Barrow's own mother was involved with a similar organization in Washington, D.C., that empowered mothers.

"I'm a firm believer that a mother's voice must be heard. That was [my mother's] motto," she said.

E-mail Elahe Izadi at eizadi@gazette.net.