About Us

the first post COVID summer. We had spent months distancing ourselves, wearing masks, and taking injections of horse tranquilizers. We were done. We missed our friends and family so much. So we decided to get some friends together and celebrate the 4th of July in Jim & Amy Miller's backyard. We called it the Star Spangled Backyard Banger. Only 20-ish people traveled from far and wide to attend. Paul McHenry sang the National Anthem, and his dad slung homemade pizzas from his latest side quest: owning a pizza oven. Life was good. So, the next year, we decided to do it again.

2022. We thought more people should experience the event, so the 2nd Annual SSBB went out to the world—and about 40-ish people showed up.
We knew it was a craze that was going to be bigger than the iPhone and Tickle Me Elmo, combined. We bought Paul an inflatable eagle costume, and rented a slushy machine for the kids. There was no way we were going to top 2022’s event - we were a full fledge operation. I think WGAL reached out for a statement, but we only knew bigger, we kept scheming.  

2023. We introduced Opening Ceremonies. This year,  during our ceremonies, we held a surprise college graduation for our Master’s student, Kim Rowe, who missed hers to attend a Taylor Swift concert. Mike started a new side quest: he purchased a dual slushy machine and a bigger pizza oven. The group grew to 60+ people. We implemented relay games, prizes, the infamous candy scramble with corporate sponsored swag. We had kickball with baby pools as bases. We were almost bigger than the crowd at Trump’s inauguration. LiveNation was trying to see if Coachella could move to Mount Joy so we could combine forces, but we weren't done. The committee just looked at each other at the end of the day, and whispered "bigger", so that's when...  

2024. 80+ people attended—our biggest crowd to date. We knew this was the year to surprise all the new faces, so we won an ice cream party for 100 at an auction, complete with a building-sized dairy cow. Now, this was big. We were thinking outside the box now. The Millers almost got calls from the Mount Joy Borough office, but, the joke was on them. The press was already informed about the banger this year, they had been tracking this event since '21. There was no stopping us. The pizza business really took off, and Steely Pan Pizza became a full-fledged operation. Our bulldog Betty, who we rescued from commercial breeding the year prior, started to fall ill from years of Amish abuse. We knew this was going to be her last event so, “Lizzie’s Glizzies” was the name of the hot dog roller the SSBB committee purchased to keep alive the memory of her favorite activity alive: stealing food off someone’s plate. We raised money and donated $700 to fight puppy mills. Betty passed away four days after her party. Some say she left this fine earth yelling "Freeeeeeeedommmmmm" 

2025. Jim & Amy decided to break our hearts and sell their home and the backyard the held our half a decades worth of memories. We thought the Star Spangled Backyard Banger had finally come to an end. People were outraged, except for the Mount Joy Borough Police Department who could finally take the weekend off to enjoy the peaceful streets again. We decided if we were going out, it would be BIG. 

And then, in the midst of planning we were saddened to hear we'd be losing one of our members. It would be Gretchen’s last summer event. We thought about calling it all off,  but she was with the Star Spangled team since the first event, so we wanted to make this one we'd never forget. We held a fundraiser and raffled off gift baskets donated by our guests. We started throwing around the term “Five-Nale", and that caught attention quick. We signed insurance waivers, and Bounce House Lancaster dropped off enough inflatables to make Jim Miller’s homeowners coverage triple. 

Gretchen passed away in early May, so our event turned quickly into a big group hug of love that we were desperately missing. And we decided to split the money raised—taking our Brobst girls back-to-school shopping and donating the rest to Living LFS. We raised almost $3,000. 

There was one thing we couldn't figure out - who would deliver the opening ceremonies? Who would be able to honor Gretchen and not spend 10-15 minutes crying in front of 100+ people in the fetal position? Well, Liesa was definitely out. So we invited Ben Franklin to lead our Opening Ceremonies. He may have harassed several star-spangled guests when he started mingling around the party —and we’re still not sure if that was Ben or the paid actor. But, we achieved our goal of surprsing our guests, honoring our girl, and raising a butt ton of money. 

Ben may attend this year, we're checking currently with his probation officer if he got those charges dropped. 

Which leads us to this year. We thought it was over, but we couldn't be stopped. 

2026. We never thought we’d find a location big and badass enough to hold this event - so when we did, we had to rebrand it: 

Star Spangled Summer Camp. 

And as Pauly D famously said when that grenade stalked his entire life on the boardwalk  

 “God bless me, it’s fuckin' summah”—and anything is possible when god blesses us in the summer. 

So now that you’re up to speed, thanks for taking a minute to check out the history of our Star Spangled events. 

We hope you’ll be joining us this year. As always, there will be lots of food, prizes, music, games - and a few surprises.

God bless us, it’s summer.

xo, 

The SSSC Committee