City Squeakers is a female, teacher owned small business facilitating children’s activities at community and private functions and hosting special events, like children’s dance parties and “Moms’ Night Out”.
City Squeakers utilizes a play-based philosophy, planning open-ended activities for children and providing a welcoming and supportive opportunity for the whole family to socialize.
City Squeakers prides itself on being affordable, inclusive and open to partnering with other organizations to provide a unique experience for families in our community.
Initially an idea to host playgroups at her neighborhood playground, City Squeakers was established in 2021 by owner, Lexi Schaefers.
Lexi, a certified teacher, frequented the playground with her infant and toddler and met grown ups of all kinds who wanted socialization and education for the young children in their care. The problem? Programs were expensive, rigid in their format, located too far from their city neighborhood, required long-term commitment or weren’t regularly scheduled and were almost always indoors at a time when folks were still feeling uneasy about indoor meetups.
Lexi used her early-childhood background to plan a few playground playgroups, made homemade flyers to advertise and posted them in her neighborhood.
10 families arrived on the first day.
Since its first playgroup, City Squeakers has
hosted regularly scheduled, outdoor playgroups when the weather allowed
planned indoor, Winter meetups at various kid-friendly locations around the City
facilitated regularly scheduled, intergenerational programs with local senior citizens
organized Spring and Summer break playgroups welcoming school-aged children
worked with other organizations to host camps, like Camp Songbird with You Be You, Inc.
secured sponsors so that several playgroup sessions were free to all
donated to local non-profits through large special events, like the Winter Celebration and collections for children’s books and clothes during playgroups
made 250 blankets for Project Linus after collecting fleece over the course of several months at playgroups and special events
welcomed guests such as educators, non-profits, early intervention specialists, volunteer organizations and yoga instructors to local playgroups
become a member of the Playful Pittsburgh Collaborative
been invited to several community events and festivals in the Greater Pittsburgh region to provide meaningful play for children
supported moms with “Mom’s Night Out” events and organized babysitter info swaps
expanded to afterschool sessions and infant and young toddler meetups
contracted with a nonprofit to lead Preschool Readiness classes
established “caregiver and me” style preschool programming
has been on the news, twice!
has been asked to attend lots of events with her activities by organizations such as the Pittsburgh Park Rangers and Allegheny County Parks
Beginning in Fall of 2025, City Squeakers transitioned to providing local special events only, ceasing to provide weekday early childhood programming and playgroups because Lexi has returned to working in a school setting. But, we are very proud of all the things we accomplished of the last few years.