Sudbury nonprofit's fundraiser allows children's fairy fantasies to be fulfilled

SUDBURY — Longfellow's Wayside Inn was transformed into a fairy wonderland — scattered with fairy homes, pixie dust, enchanting flutes playing throughout the gardens and “live fairies,” courtesy of The Thursday Garden Club of Sudbury.

The inn, surrounded by wooded trails, a lake, little gardens and beautiful trees, made for a perfect dwelling for the club’s Fairy Garden Trail fundraiser last Saturday.

Related: First Fairy Trail was held at Camp Sewataro

The event featured a special appearance by the Fairy Queen herself, Carol Droege, who flew in from her hometown of Watchung, New Jersey, to give light, joy, and sprinkle fairy dust.

Her curled, pastel pink hair and glittering smile shone from across the garden as she waved and welcomed all the little fairies.

As Droege walked alongside the lake after spreading her wings along the Fairy Trail, she suddenly heard “not an indoor voice” shout, “It’s a fairy! It’s a real fairy — she’s waving at me!”

The star-struck youngster’s name was Frankie and “we had a wonderful visit.”

“That kind of excitement… I would wear wings every day for that,” Droege said.

More: Wayside Inn hosts 22nd annual Paws In The Park 

Last year, when the club’s co-president, Angela Stoller, was organizing the first Fairy Garden Trail fundraiser, she was on the lookout for the Fairy Queen. Through her husband, Mark, she connected with Droege who attended the same high school.

“I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know who sits up late at night and thinks of my name when it comes to this stuff,’ but I’m in,” Droege said with a chuckle and bright smile. “When she asked me this year, I couldn’t say no. I love it.”

She even made this writer feel like a kid again, offering a pinch of fairy dust to the hands and a tube of glittery red dust as a parting gift.

Droege, a retired pastor’s wife, loves to create various forms of art in her free time — as shown in her handmade Fairy Queen costume.

Despite living as a fairy in her “regular, everyday life,” she embodies the Fairy Queen persona only for the Garden Club’s event.

'An ode to her'

At the entrance to the Fairy Trail stood two fairy statues, which was a tribute to a decades-long member of the club, Lee Phipps, who recently died. Stoller said Phipps’ daughter was giving away items from her house, and in the corner she spotted “these beautiful fairies” that were perfect for the Fairy Trail.

More: Wayside Inn among best places to enjoy fireside dining

Since the 1970s, Phipps was a dedicated Garden Club member who lived across the pond from the Wayside Inn, “so it was an ode to her,” Stoller said.

Phipps’ fairies not only marked the start of the trail but also the beginning of Saturday's scavenger hunt. Adventurous and curious youngsters scattered the trail to find a mouse-sized house, a fairy with a toadstool, a butterfly wing, and more.

These clues led them to discover the fairy houses that Garden Club members, as well as a couple of non-members, made for the event. The fairy homes were made with natural materials such as pinecones, sticks, stones and moss, as well as some supplemental craft supplies.

More out-of-the-ordinary supplies, including pizza boxes and champagne bottles, were used to build Sande Weiskopf’s magical creation. About 30 whimsical dwellings were housed along the trail for people to discover and enjoy.

Within the trail, Fairy Princess Laura Erb floated along in her green wings, greeting and posing with budding-young fairies in a beaded corset and purple tulle gown — fit for any princess.

The trail’s exit led to the Story Tree, where children sat in the shade, captivated by magical fairy tales. Soon afterward, several young ones convinced their parents to buy more fairy stories from Liza Garden Walsh.

Down the path, Walsh’s books, along with some baked goods, were sold at the Longfellow Garden. Walsh not only writes fairy tales, but also books on how to build your own fairy house. Visitors also took part in a fairy home raffle at the garden.

For history buffs, the Wayside Inn Foundation had an information table where it shared a story of a hostess from 1925, Priscilla Staples, who wrote a poem that embodied the fun-loving spirit of this event.

“Oh makers of this dress o’ mine / Creators of its silk so fine / Sewers of every careful seam / It makes me feel like a fairy queen!,” Staples wrote.

Wayside Inn makes plea to host

Typically, the club’s fundraiser takes place every other year, but this event was so popular among adults and children alike that Co-Presidents Stoller and Karen Sample decided to open up the enchanted fairy trail this year as well. Local businesses helped make this enchanting event a reality, with Main Street Bank being the platinum sponsor.

The event’s success also impressed employees at the Wayside Inn, who reached out to the club and asked to host the fairy trail on its grounds, Sample said.

Not to be confused with the Sudbury Garden Club, the Thursday Garden Club of Sudbury was founded in 1951. It sprouted from the Sudbury Garden Club not being able to accept more members.

“For some reason they came up with that name and now we are locked to Thursdays,” club member Mary Hardwick said with a laugh.

Hardwick got her start with the club in 2008 as a means to socialize and make friends over a shared hobby. Since then, she has taken on various roles within the club, including president a few years back.

“It’s nice to always bring us back to nature,” she said. “Especially after what we dealt with over the last couple of years and realizing that nature helps to keep us centered... I think people are actually starting to get the gardening bug because of that.”

The club is a nonprofit that provides educational community programs, beautification projects throughout the town and regional high school scholarships for environmental and horticulture studies.

All proceeds from the Fairy Garden Trail go toward the club’s civic beautification endeavors including decorating traffic islands and planters, the Town Center for the holidays, as well as assisting with the Children's Garden and programs at Goodnow Library.

The Thursday Garden Club of Sudbury meets on Zoom on the second Thursday of each month, from September to May.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Enchanting trail in Sudbury embodies a magical fairy fantasy