UPPER SAUCON TWP., Pa. – Summer camp is a staple for local kids, but one Lehigh Valley grandmother decided to skip the registration lines and build her own right in her garage.<\/p>\n
If you walk into Idelle McCaffrey’s garage, “It’s a sea of pink,” said McCaffrey.<\/p>\n
The 73-year-old art teacher wanted to keep her 7 and 9-year-old grandkids entertained this summer. But the moment she brought out the craft supplies, word spread fast.<\/p>\n
“They invited some of their friends,” said McCaffrey. “And then some of my neighbors said, can you take my grandchildren?”<\/p>\n
The backyard project instantly turned into a creative operation. First came a dragon theme, complete with handmade dragon eggs.<\/p>\n
“We had dragon week, and we have the baking week, and the next one is fashion week,” said McCaffrey. “Then the last one camp is in August, will be under the sea theme.”<\/p>\n
This week, McCaffrey transformed the space into an immersive baking boutique, complete with custom play money.<\/p>\n
“They made dog treats, and they put them in here. And then people could come,” said McCaffrey.<\/p>\n
The master level of crafting comes naturally to McCaffrey, a lifelong artist. After previously retiring, she found herself unwilling to sit still and took a job teaching art.<\/p>\n
What she didn’t expect was for the camp to quickly evolve into a multi-generational team effort.<\/p>\n
The biggest surprise in this 55+ Upper Saucon Township neighborhood isn’t how much the kids love it; it’s the community of volunteers stepping up.<\/p>\n
“I get volunteers from all over from my community to help me with things, and they come and read to the kids, and they volunteer to bake with them and they help with crafts, and it’s really been great,” said McCaffrey.<\/p>\n
From an 84-year-old neighbor named Geraldine who holds down the fort on dish duty and keeps everyone in line, to a local military veteran who traded his uniform for a pink cupcake apron to teach the girls how to bake peanut butter cookies, the entire block has rallied around the concept. With some helpers like Ms. Stephanie coming each week to help the kids.<\/p>\n
“I think that’s my favorite part of the whole thing, was how it made the community come together,” said McCaffrey. “And I didn’t even know that would happen.”<\/p>\n
Proof that sometimes all it takes to build a village, is a garage full of imagination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPPER SAUCON TWP., Pa. – Summer camp is a staple for local kids, but one Lehigh Valley grandmother…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,97906,43938,734,524,18256,49326,8969,97905,4345],"class_list":["post-225476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-art-teacher","tag-baking","tag-children","tag-community","tag-crafts","tag-grandmother","tag-neighborhood","tag-summer-camp","tag-volunteers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}