A lemonade stand at a Kingsville yard sale last summer launched a local movement.
It’s Little Hands Kids for a Cause: children helping other children facing life-threatening illnesses.
It has given away $15,000 in the last eight months and is now helping its 19th family. The kids still sell lemonade and the group has added its own line of colourful Hero T-shirts. Every time the group learns of a child with a severe illness, the child receives a special Hero T-shirt and families can get other shirts that say “my son is my hero” or “my daughter is my hero.”
The group has sold about 500 T-shirts and inspired students to hold loonie and toy drives.
And it’s not all about money. Essex County families and children who have been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, like Kingsville’s Calvin Klassen-Parent, connect and feel support from the community.
“It’s amazing,” said Calvin’s mom Bonnie Klassen.
Calvin, who will have to undergo three years of chemotherapy for his leukemia, was in a London hospital 56 days this year. Little Hands Kids for a Cause made orange T-shirts that said “Calvin is my hero” and Calvin, 5, would repeatedly ask if anyone was wearing the shirts.
“The days that those pictures would come in, it would make his day. Not only for me to know that the whole community is supporting us but just to kind of see my son’s face light up. Someone’s wearing his shirt with his name on it.”
It is awesome to connect with what she calls the secret society of moms with sick kids, she said. They understand what she’s going through and know the medical lingo.
Co-founders Leigh Ann Mastronardi and Aimee Omstead are moms who were involved in fundraisers but didn’t know each other until a mutual friend introduced them. They realized there wasn’t a local organization that would support families with sick children and include all life-threatening illnesses. The group’s Facebook page — with information on its heroes and ways to help such as praying or cooking meals — started to gain attention by the fall. The first lemonade stand at her family yard sale raised $90 in July.
“We honestly never thought it would get so big so quickly,” Mastronardi said. “We just thought we were going to be this little Kingsville group of kids running lemonade stands. We didn’t think we’d raise much. We thought, you know, $50 here, $50 there but it ended up it just grew so quickly and took off.”
There are now about 30 children who volunteer to sell lemonade and shirts at events.
Before the group formed, Omstead had been praying for Maisyn Spencer of LaSalle who had a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The group’s first donations went to his family and although the eight-year-old boy died in November, Mastronardi credits him with inspiring more people to get involved with Little Hands Kids For a Cause.
“There are so many children affected by life-threatening illnesses and we did not realize how many locally that would be reaching out to us,” Mastronardi said. “A lot of our hero families, most of them will say what they appreciate most is just that we’re recognizing their child as a hero, recognizing what they’re going through is hard. It’s a struggle.”
Omstead said there is an amazing camaraderie between the families and their strength and determination is inspiring. “I am not sure where this will go but I can say it has become so much more than I ever thought it would.”
So far Little Hands Kids for Cause, with its new website, littlehandskids.org, has not received charitable status.
The group has its first five-kilometre walk/run/cycle for Rare Disease Awareness Sunday at 11:30 a.m. at Colasanti’s Tropical Gardens. There is no registration fee but donations will be accepted. The children, their lemonade and shirts will also be at Colasanti’s Tropical Gardens April 3 for its Easter event and the group is planning its first Little Hands Walk of Heroes May 30.
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