{"id":11707,"date":"2026-08-29T10:02:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T10:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=11707"},"modified":"2026-08-29T10:02:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T10:02:29","slug":"8-year-old-twin-girls-asked-to-hold-their-birthday-party-at-ace-hardware-the-staff-made-it-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=11707","title":{"rendered":"8-year-old twin girls asked to hold their birthday party at Ace Hardware. The staff made it magic."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cTruly one of those birthdays we\u2019ll remember forever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you remember your favorite birthday as a child? For most of us, it\u2019s a blur of pool parties, sunny backyards, and bats flying into pi\u00f1atas. Maybe there was the odd bash held at the local McDonald\u2019s around age 5 if you were lucky. But twin sisters Eliza and Jade aren\u2019t like \u201cmost of us.\u201d For starters, they\u2019re cooler, and likely much better at potting a plant than we\u2019ll ever be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s set the scene. In Seattle, Eliza and Jade were about to turn 8 years old. While everyone else had their parties at bowling alleys, amusement parks, and ice skating rinks, these two decided to try something different. Then, the idea hit them: Can you throw a party at a hardware store? Preferably at one known for its \u201chelpful hardware folks?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The twins approached their mom with a birthday wish: They wanted to throw a party at one of their favorite neighborhood spots. To their surprise, the Maple Leaf Ace Hardware answered with a resounding yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s how these 8-year-old twins landed an Ace Hardware birthday party, complete with matching aprons, personalized name tags, and 25 of their friends clocked in as \u201cemployees for a day.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A personal birthday wish<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This wasn\u2019t a random choice. The twins\u2019 mom,\u00a0Hillary, worked at that very same Ace about 20 years ago back in her high school and college days. The family still drops by all the time to catch up with old friends, she says, although not everyone\u2019s there for chit-chat. \u201c[The girls] are always put to work,\u201d she told Seattle\u2019s\u00a0SPIRIT 105.3. \u201cThe owner has little jobs for them.\u201d During those visits, Eliza and Jade would close store bins and tidy stray items off the floor. They took their jobs seriously as if they were getting paid to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the girls said they wanted their party there, Hillary didn\u2019t bat an eye. But would the store go for it? \u201cI really did not think that they would say yes,\u201d she admitted. Consider it birthday luck: John, the owner of that particular Ace Hardware location, understood the girls\u2019 vision and said yes in a heartbeat. \u201cHe\u2019s incredible, and was like, \u2018Yeah, let\u2019s do it,\u201d said Hillary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nuts and bolts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When the day of the party finally arrived, Maple Leaf Ace Hardware was ready. Upon entering, guests were greeted by a neat row of tiny aprons, each with a personalized name tag (because if you\u2019re an employee for a day, you\u2019d better look official). The kids planted and decorated their own flower pots, and picked up a little botany along the way. They wired up small battery-powered fans for a hands-on STEM project, then decorated those too. Toss in a couple temporary hardware tattoos for kids and grown-ups, plus cake and plenty of dancing, and you\u2019ve got a recipe for a perfect birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plenty of the guests showed up unsure what you could possibly do at a hardware store. The dirt from the potting won them over fast (\u201cWhat child doesn\u2019t love dirt?\u201d asked Hillary). And the aprons, with real pockets, didn\u2019t hurt either. Even the party favors stayed on theme: sturdy buckets straight off an Ace shelf, packed with goodies and labeled \u201cThank you for coming to Eliza and Jade\u2019s birthday party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why a neighborhood Ace could pull this off<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ace Hardware may\u00a0look like one big national chain\u00a0(the\u00a0same red sign\u00a0marks each location, and we\u2019ve all heard\u00a0that jingle\u00a0approximately ten million times), but it actually runs as a\u00a0retailer-owned cooperative. People who live in the neighborhood own local locations, and those owners have the\u00a0freedom\u00a0to run their stores the way their community wants them to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ace,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, if you\u2019ve been scratching your head wondering how one store could drop everything to host a birthday party, now you know. Events like Eliza and Jade\u2019s are part of Ace\u2019s\u00a0community programming, which plays a\u00a0huge role\u00a0at so many of these stores across the nation:\u00a0recycling programs,\u00a0gardening demos,\u00a0philanthropic car shows,\u00a0fundraisers for local children\u2019s hospitals. In the grand scheme of things, throwing a party for two devoted little regulars seems quite simple.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its reputation\u2019s well-earned: Ace really is the place for \u201chelpful hardware folks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who\u2019s next? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When their mom, Hillary (@hillarysarau), posted about the party on Instagram, her comment section lit up with praise: for the girls, for the store\u2019s crew, and for Ace Hardware itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is so special. I LOVE it when kids have interests that might be considered unusual, but the adults around them do everything possible to accept, respect, and indulge those interests,\u201d wrote one person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another chimed in, \u201cAce Hardware is such a valuable place in any community! When I was young, my mom would take me to our local Ace for whatever science fair, engineering build, creative endeavor I had in my head, and the lovely humans at Ace would help us figure out how to make it happen.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Ace\u2019s official account joined the comments and wished the girls a happy birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, a winner: \u201cDoes Ace do this for adults, too? I\u2019m asking for a friend (me).\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let them eat cake <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kids usually know exactly what delights them. Grown-ups would be wise to listen. For their birthdays, Eliza and Jade didn\u2019t want anything fancy, just a rack of aprons, a little dirt under their fingernails, and a day spent with their favorite people in a place they already loved. Thank goodness for neighborhood hardware stores!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTruly one of those birthdays we\u2019ll remember forever.\u201d Do you remember your favorite birthday as a child? For most of us, it\u2019s a blur of pool parties, sunny<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/787208360_1393205449680852_9119557704802577287_n.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11709,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11707\/revisions\/11709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}