'I Built It' Clinic Brings Children, Parents Together at Lowe's

The “thunk thunk thunk” of hammers echoed Saturday morning at Lowe’s, not in the tool section but in a separate room at one end of the building.

Adam Yalcin, 5, held one of the hammers. He and his mother, Colleen, were assembling a project, a wooden holder for a kid-safe plastic vase with a red chalkboard heart on the front, a perfect gift for yesterday—Mother’s Day.

At another table, Alex Argueta, 13, and his sister, Patricia, 11, both of Woburn, also assembled the vase and heart.

At a third table, Eamonn Casey helped his son, Michael, who turned 4 this past Thursday, with the project.

They are all regulars at the twice-a-month free “I Built It” sessions for children on Saturday mornings at Lowe’s.

Alex Argueta wants to be an architect. He likes “building stuff.”  He’s filled one of the handyman’s aprons he received as part of the project with badges for projects he’s completed.

Patricia got interested in the session after Alex brought home his first project.

“I wanted to go, too,” she said. Patricia pointed out that her brother takes a woodshop class at the . Both she and her brother will help assemble projects at home, like new furniture, she said.

Adam has always been mechanically inclined, according to his mother. Adam’s maternal grandfather used to let him “take things apart and put them together,” she said. He reads a little but mainly uses the diagrams that come with the parts to assemble the projects, she said. He has two aprons full of badges representing projects he’s completed, his mother noted, and he keeps his completed projects. The duo comes from Wilmington.

Michael will present the vase and heart he assembled Saturday to his grandmother for Mother’s Day, according to his father. Michael often gives the projects he makes at the sessions away as gifts, his dad said:  the mini-basketball hoop to an uncle, the pinball machine to a friend. They come from Tewksbury.

“We already have a Mother’s Day present” for Michael’s mom, Eamonn said.

Tammy Quon started to bring her son, Jayson, 6, to the sessions several years ago to develop his hand-eye coordination and to learn to follow picture directions, she explained. He will be “more than happy” to send his handiwork to his grandmother, she said.

“He’s happy to show the fruits of his labor,” she added.

Now she brings her daughter, Isabella, 3, too, from Winchester. They try to come to every build-it clinic, she said.

Woburn resident Cayman Amaro, a mother herself, has supervised the program for 10 years, since she started to work at Lowe’s. A customer service associate, you can usually find her behind the customer service desk.

Over 10 years, the number of children—just the children—who participate in the program has increased, she said. The average now, per session, she said, is 55, but has risen, on occasion, to 100. Then they move outside.

The earlier you start children in the program, the sooner they sharpen their coordination, she said. They also learn comprehension, she said, and build their self-confidence.

And spend time with a parent, said Lowe’s employee Nicole Surette, who was working with Amaro to run Saturday’s session. Surette said she has an early childhood education background.

“I like to see what kids are thinking,” she said.

Projects have included a race car—slightly different each year, this time a pull and go version—and a biplane and a birdhouse that attaches to a window. 

“Anything that moves is popular,” Amaro said.

Some projects are more complex than this one—or as Amaro put it, with “many more nails.”

At Christmastime, children meet for three Saturdays in a row to assemble a Polar Express-type train, she said, complete with decals for the windows.

“We put ours around the (Christmas) tree,” Amaro said.

A few of the projects are available as kits, she noted.

Parents usually stay with their children during the session, recommended for children in grades one through five, depending on the child.  Alex and Patricia, because of their age and experience, received special permission to keep this project a secret from their mom.

Near the end of the Saturday’s hour-long build-it session, Rob Amaro brought his daughter, Hannah, in to assemble the vase project. Yes, Hannah is Cayman’s daughter. She’s been coming since she was 3, according to her parents.

All the participants, children and parents, seemed to enjoy the session. Unlike Alex Argueta, Adam Yalcin didn’t elaborate on why.

“I just do,” he said.

There’s another reason why one child comes regularly to the build-it sessions. 

"It gives Momma a break,” said dad Eamonn Casey.