A Cumberland mother’s new farm stand was stolen before she could use it; strangers John and Casey Adams rebuilt it for free, even after their tools were stolen
A mother of two who spent months preparing to open a home-based sourdough bakery had her brand-new farm stand stolen on its first night outside, but a father-and-son construction team of complete strangers rebuilt the entire stand for free, reports WJAR.Katrina Blancaflor, a former professional pastry chef, placed the wooden stand at the end of her driveway on the evening before 4 July to attract visitors from a local holiday road race. By the next morning, the stand had disappeared.When neighbours checked private security camera footage, the video showed an SUV arriving at 2:00 a.m., lifting the heavy wooden stand onto its roof, and driving away into the night.After Blancaflor shared the theft on social media, local builders John Adams and his son, Casey Adams, owners of Adams Construction in Cumberland, saw the post and offered to rebuild the stand without charging for labour or materials.
Months of planning vanished overnight
Blancaflor trained at culinary school and worked at well-known restaurants, including Bobby Flay’s restaurant in Las Vegas and David Burke’s Primehouse in Chicago. After taking time away from her career to raise her two children, she began developing sourdough recipes at home and decided to start a small bakery called K’s Bakestand.Her husband, Ian Swett, spent months designing and building a custom wooden roadside stand using detailed architectural drawings.“It wasn’t that easy. She’s been on me since the winter to build this and life’s busy, so, it was one of those projects that I kind of got procrastinating on until the Fourth of July,” said Swett.The couple placed the stand outside on 3 July at 5:00 p.m. to promote upcoming pre-orders to workers driving home and runners taking part in the annual holiday race passing their property the next morning. Blancaflor’s daughter, Kalia, also planned to use part of the stand to sell squishies.“I look up and it’s not there and I have a little shock and then I’m like, well, there’s no way somebody would’ve taken this,” Swett recalled about the moment he stepped outside with his morning coffee on 4 July. “I figured, maybe she put it in the garage or something so I went and checked and it wasn’t there.”Blancaflor reported the theft to local police after neighbours shared street camera footage showing the 2:00 a.m. incident, but no arrests or recoveries were made immediately.“At least three people on this road reached out with footage,” said Blancaflor. “The fact it was at 2 a.m. was just really sketchy.”
Builders overcome tool theft to complete project
After seeing the family’s story online, John Adams offered to build a replacement stand using Swett’s original design plans. Adams, who has run his residential construction company for 50 years with the slogan “Not A Problem,” believed his team could rebuild it faster than the family could begin again.“We thought, it’s easier for us then for the husband to do it again,” said Adams. “I wanted to duplicate it as best I could. The way he did it, he did a beautiful job and we did the best we could.”The rebuild faced an unexpected problem when thieves broke into Adams Construction and stole the crew’s tools during the project. Despite the delay, the builders replaced their equipment and completed the stand one week later than planned.“Something like that, where it’s not a big deal to us but a huge deal to them,” said Casey Adams. “She came up and gave us a huge hug, and it was just like, you could tell it meant so much to her and really that’s what it was all about.”
Security upgrades prepare business for launch
The Adams family delivered the finished stand directly to Blancaflor’s driveway, giving her an exact replacement of the original design.“I was so shocked it literally brought tears to my eyes and when we saw it we were like wow, that looks just like our stand because I sent him the drawings that my husband did and it meant so much,” Blancaflor said.K’s Bakestand is now officially open and taking online pre-orders for local pickup. To prevent another theft, the family has installed a dedicated security camera system around the driveway, and Blancaflor has promised the Adams family free baked goods whenever they visit.
