Cape Cod's only daily show, live from Mashpee on September 28, 2026.

TODAY: Lauren DeGregorio, O'playsis and the Bourne Youth Council in Buzzards Bay. THIS WEEK ON CAPE COD: SandwichFest, Oct 3, Sandwich / Candyland Kindness Festival, Oct 4, Buzzards Bay / Love Local Fest, Oct 4, Hyannis

Lauren DeGregorio runs O'playsis, a collaborative arts studio and music lounge in Buzzards Bay, and helps lead the Bourne Youth Council. She and Stephanie cover a rainy weekend of volunteering, this Sunday's Candyland Kindness Festival, and a very full October 17 in Buzzards Bay.

IN THIS EPISODE

• About 20 volunteers unload a pumpkin truck in the rain for the Bourne Methodist Church pumpkin patch, which benefits the Bourne food pantry
• Carve a pumpkin, then drop it at Buzzards Bay Park on Oct 17 to light the Witches Walk
• A rainy Saturday, a closet cleanout and 250 pairs of socks matched
• Young Y Achievers and getting programs into local schools
• Cape Kid Meals and its Keeping the Promise Gala
• Why asking for money is so hard for nonprofit people
• Question of the day: what slang word gives away your age?
• Google's most searched teen slang of 2026, including "quiet on the creek"
• Dungeons and Dragons for adults and Magic the Gathering this October at O'playsis
• Kind Hearts for Kids moves in with O'playsis, which turns three in November
• Rescued plants, marigolds at concerts, and a winter of frozen tomato sauce
• Who has storage space on the Upper Cape?
• Two giant pandas land in Atlanta on loan from China
• Crocs sues Five Below over $7 clogs, and why artists should protect their work

THE WITCHES WALK, OCT 17

The Gray Gables witches outgrew their neighborhood and asked the Bourne Youth Council to take over. The day starts with Main Street trick-or-treating, the annual Thriller flash mob and family fun at Buzzards Bay Park. At 4, witches and wizards (21 plus, men welcome this year) check in for a witches dance, a scavenger hunt with brew stops at Main Street businesses, and an after party at O'playsis with Soul Purpose. The studio's Hocus Pocus walkthrough opens the same day.

PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED

Lauren DeGregorio of O'playsis, Bourne Youth Council, Nicole Mitchell of Kind Hearts for Kids (kindheartsforkids.org), Bourne Methodist Church, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Mass Cultural Council, Young Y Achievers, Cape Kid Meals (capekidmeals.org), Soul Purpose, Kono Pizza, Events on Cape Cod (eventsoncape.com).

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• Sat Oct 3: SandwichFest, Sandwich Village
• Sun Oct 4: Candyland Kindness Festival, sixth annual, Buzzards Bay, with Lemonadio DJing
• Sun Oct 4: Love Local Fest, Aselton Park, Hyannis
• Oct 9 to 31, Fri and Sat: Haunted Hallows and night markets, Mashpee
• Sat Oct 17: Main Street trick-or-treating, pumpkin drop-off and the Witches Walk, Buzzards Bay

HELP WANTED

The Kindness Festival still needs craft table volunteers, vendors and nonprofit tables. Email bourneyouthcouncil@gmail.com.

QUOTABLE

"I opened it up because I found healing through art and I wanted to give that to others." (Lauren)

"Everything in my life is tiny and everything that I dream up is big." (Stephanie)

"Please don't call me. I don't like answering my phone." (Lauren)

Catch every episode on YouTube, and now on Spotify too.

Stephanie in the Morning. Every morning we ask and you answer, where locals take the mic. Powered by Lemonadio.

Cape Cod's only daily show, live from Mashpee on September 23, 2026.

TODAY: Jen Villa, Love Live Local in Hyannis. THIS WEEK ON CAPE COD: Habitat Blitz Build house finished, Sept 25, Falmouth / Dolly Parton Day, Sept 25 / Love Local Fest, Sept 27, Aselton Park, Hyannis

Two years ago today Jen Villa was named executive director of the organization she helped start in 2013. She sits down with Stephanie four days out from Love Local Fest, with about 100 Cape makers ready and a forecast that may not cooperate. This is the honest version of the shop local conversation: whether it is working, and what happens to a Main Street when nobody shows up.

IN THIS EPISODE

• The Little Beach Gallery, and a buy local shirt printed before anyone used the phrase
• From a weekly email to a nonprofit: status came in 2020, right before the pandemic
• The Cape Cod Resilience Fund, and grants that went out when things looked bleak
• Announced here: a new Small Business Support Fund, with grants starting in 2027
• Question of the day: one to ten, how often do you choose local?
• Is shop local winning? The phrase caught on, and so did the competition
• Shopping local counts as time, attention and intention, not only money
• The convenience myth: most local retailers sell online too
• The 10 percent shift, and the $112 million it would keep on Cape
• Road work and detours, with businesses reporting drops of 20 to 60 percent
• Watching a downtown disappear in Attleboro, and why the Cape cannot absorb that
• Advocating for small business while co-owning The West End in Hyannis
• Shop crawls: Osterville, Harwich Port, and Mashpee Commons on Nov 14
• Succession, and the owners with nobody to hand the keys to

LOVE LOCAL FEST AND THE WEATHER

Sunday, Sept 27, 11 to 5, Aselton Park, Hyannis. Free, about 100 vendors, food trucks, sweets, live music and a beverage garden with Devil's Purse, Truro Vineyards and Cape Tide Hard Tea. There is no rain date, and as of this recording the team was weighing the forecast with the town of Barnstable. If it moves, the loss lands on vendors who spent three months making inventory, so watch Love Live Local and this show for the plan.

STUDIES AND SURVEYS

Love Live Local's research finds that shifting just 10 percent of Cape Cod spending from corporate and online to independent local businesses would keep an additional $112 million in the local economy every year. Not spending more. Spending differently.

PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED

Jen Villa of Love Live Local (lovelivelocal.com), co-founded in 2013 with Amanda Converse and Kate Sheehan. The West End, Hyannis. The Love Local Card and online directory, and the shop at 539 South Street, Hyannis. The Mashpee Chamber of Commerce (mashpeechamber.com), Mashpee Commons, CCYP, EforAll, Ashley Irene, White Lion Bakery, Atlantic Soap Company, Weir Pottery, Chippy Design, Events on Cape Cod (eventsoncape.com).

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

• Fri Sept 25: Habitat Blitz Build house finished, behind the ReStore, Gifford St Ext, Falmouth
• Sun Sept 27, 11 to 5: Love Local Fest, Aselton Park, Hyannis. Free. Weather call pending
• Sun Sept 27: Mashpee Farmers Market
• Sat Nov 14: Love Live Local shop crawl at Mashpee Commons, locally owned businesses only
• November: the Love Live Local gift guide, expanding into a year round local catalog
• Sat Dec 5: December Love Local Fest, Hyannis Village Green

HELP WANTED

If the fest moves, share the vendor list and buy from those makers anyway. Love Live Local is adding part time help and looking for donors.

QUOTABLE

"It's not about survival. It's always about thriving." (Jen)

"With any nonprofit, your goal is to have your mission not be needed anymore." (Jen)

"Practice over perfection." (Jen)

"It's like playing checkers with people's lives." (Stephanie, on succession)

Catch every episode on YouTube, and now on Spotify too.

Stephanie in the Morning. Every morning we ask and you answer, where locals take the mic. Powered by Lemonadio.

A stepfather who could not grip a golf club, a dream twenty years later, and a glove that is now on Walmart.com.

Cape Cod's only daily show, live from Mashpee on September 10, 2026.

TODAY: Sharon Riley, StrokeMaster and Get A Grip LLC. THIS WEEK ON CAPE COD: Trail Talk bird walk, Sept 11, Osterville / Biz Bites virtual networking, Sept 14 / Getting Started with AI for Business, Sept 16, Hyannis

No Hank today. He and Mari were out celebrating 38 years at a real estate conference, which is exactly as romantic as it sounds. In his chair: Sharon Riley, who sewed elastic and Velcro onto a golf glove twenty years ago so her stepfather could keep playing, put it in a drawer, and then built it into a product that is now on Walmart.com.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Twenty years ago, Ray. An avid golfer who played every day with Sharon's uncles, had a stroke, recovered his athleticism, and could not grip the club. He was also driving Sharon's mother crazy sitting in the house
• The first one was elastic and Velcro sewn onto a golf glove. It bought him close to five more years of golf until a second stroke ended it
• They named it StrokeMaster, loved the name, and shelved it, because the kids were little and Sharon was running a payroll company
• Winter of 2023. Sharon is in Maine, going through the hardest stretch of her life, and Ray comes to her in a dream and tells her to make the glove, because they need it
• The patent search and the viability study that came back with nothing else like it on the market
• The PGA Show in Orlando, the Invention Arena, two weeks to get ready, and a battalion of family and friends in Maine sewing like mad
• Discovering the adaptive community was far more interested than the golfers were
• The market she thought she was in versus the market she is actually in. Golfers say they are fine. Occupational therapists and physical therapists say yes
• Made overseas, because US manufacturing quoted eight to ten times more. The RFQ, the OEM search, and learning procurement and fulfillment from scratch at this stage of a career
• Walmart.com, and what it feels like to be walking around town knowing you made a thing that is on Walmart.com
• The boy with MS at a Maine adaptive golf clinic. He raised his hand, put on a glove made for adults, swung perfectly, his mother cried, the pro cried, Sharon cried, and the cousin with the camera was crying too hard to hit record
• Eleven and a half million golfers in this country are 50 or over
• Get a grip. Stay in the game, play with purpose. And the one she is not ready for yet: get a grip, give a grip
• Question of the day: what is your hobby? Nobody on this show has a good answer
• The third act. Starting over at an age nobody tells you that you are allowed to start over at, and the Chinese tradition of celebrating a woman at 60 because her life is finally her own
• What the invention taught her about herself: trust your intuition, and stop letting the people who love you dilute the dream
• Signs, coincidences, and a financial planner at trivia who turned out to sit on a golf association board
• Hard truth about patience, the finish line you can see, and being ready for the glory now, thank you

WHAT STROKEMASTER ACTUALLY IS

Two products, both built around the same idea: keeping a hand connected to a thing it can no longer hold.

• The Grip Assist Glove. A golf glove with the strap built in
• The Grip Assist Strap.
• 
  

Sold at strokemastergolf.com and on Walmart.com, with in-store still to come.

PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED

Sharon Riley, StrokeMaster and Get A Grip LLC (strokemastergolf.com), Karen, Hank and Mari, the PGA Show and its Invention Arena, the American Society of Hand Therapists, the Maine State Golf Association, Walmart, Mashpee TV, the Mashpee Chamber of Commerce.

Catch every episode on YouTube, and now on Spotify too.

Stephanie in the Morning. Every morning we ask and you answer, where locals take the mic. Powered by Lemonadio.