Personalized blankets launch business for Wyndmoor mom
by Paula M. Riley

From Norway to Newtown, personalized blankets, pillows and towels created by Wyndmoor’s Betsy Claghorn proudly hang in baby rooms, bedrooms and dorm rooms. Recently featured on NBC10’s “The 10! Show,” Claghorn was invited as an “Entrepreneur Mom” to tell the story of her business success.

Claghorn started her aBCdesigns as so many other cottage industries begin – with the idea that she could produce something better. When she gave birth to her third child, Liza, she received what she called “the absolute cutest blanket.” Claghorn loved the gift but didn’t like that she could see the stitching on the reverse side.

A lifelong sewer, she thought to herself, “Wouldn’t it be fun to make a baby’s blanket … I know I could do this.” So she did.
MoRE

Honk! 10-year-old Olivia Villari from Chestnut Hill and 12-year-old Benjamin Kimmel, of Gladwyne lead the cast of “Honk! Jr.”, the musical in the inaugural performance by Penn Charter’s Performing Arts Camp on July 28. Kimmel played the Ugly Duckling’s friend, Drake, in the musical based on the story of the Ugly Duckling, and Villari played Ugly’s mother, Ida. The show was the culmination of four weeks of training by professional actors, dancers, musicians and stage designers. This year, 33 boys and girls, ages 6 to 14, participated in the musical production. The young thespians performed “Honk! Jr.” in the new David L. Kurtz Center for the Performing Arts at Penn Charter during their last week of camp. Visit www.penncharter.com for photos.
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After 10 years, Trolley Car Diner Still in high gear
by Lou Mancinelli

Diners can be a bit nostalgic. Most people have favorable impressions of them as places where you take the entire family to get lots of comfort food at affordable prices, and they can remind us of the place our grandparents took us out to eat as kids.
More

Canvassing Catch 22

There were days this summer when I couldn’t go down the block for a cup of coffee without being faced with a dire moral quandary.

They were often out there… members of PennPIRG or the ACLU. Blue shirted. Clutching clipboards. Armed with a well-rehearsed script designed to nettle hapless passersby.

Always, their initial salutation was a question engineered to be a no-win proposition.

“Hi sir, do you have a minute for gay rights?”
MorE

Trolley Car Diner turns 10!

Friends from Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy play wiffle ball at the Water Tower tennis courts. From left, Eric Fries, Jesse Bradley, Luke Williams, Bryan Brooks, Thomas Hendrie, John Spruance, Michael Longstreth and Daniel Dwyer.
For Video interview see closeup.brianrudnick.com

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