Little Vayda Bell, and her mom, Emily Thrush, spent nearly six hours last weekend smiling and serving ice cold lemonade with the heartfelt intent of helping others.
The six-year-old collected donations of all denominations in her donation jar — labeled with neon pink paper, the words, written in different colors, read, “Lemonade Stand for the Pleasant St. Fire Victims” — which filled quickly. By the end of the day, Vayda had collected over $800. A community member had offered to match all the contributions made during the benefit, and Mike Burdick did. Thrush said, “$1,613.88 to be exact, down to the penny,” in total was raised for those who lost their homes to the fire in late May.
Bell said her goal was to raise $100, and when she was told Thursday night, “Vayda, you met your goal and then some. You raised $800,” she started jumping up and down with glee. The soon-to-be first grader at George G. Blaisdell Elementary School, with help from mom, told The Era that they were on their way to a doctor’s appointment at the hospital and rode past the burned down houses. Her mom explained what had happened and that the families had lost a lot in the fires.
“I wanted to give them my stuff,” Bell said. “I wanted them to have some of my toys.”
Mom said that the family has a lemonade stand every year in their neighborhood and Bell asked if she could give half the money from it this year to help the fire victims. Thrush decided that the family would still have their regular neighborhood lemonade stand as they normally do, but she then reached out to her employer at Little Caesars about holding the fundraiser in their parking lot. Once Thrush had the go-ahead, everything else fell into place, she said.
“We made four big containers of lemonade the night before and two more on the day of the event,” Thrush said. She added candy and chocolate bars while others had donated baked goods.
“Lots of people came,” said Bell, swishing her blue and purple outfit from side to side as she spoke. “Some went in to get pizza and then stopped for a drink. Some came to us first.”
Bell was asked how many glasses of lemonade she poured. She said, “100 glasses.” Mom said it was at least that many and that they had one and a half gallons of lemonade leftover at the end of the day.
Thrush said, of her young daughter, “I’m proud of her. She really touched a lot of people with this, and it was all her — she wanted to do something after seeing what had happened.”
Bell met some of the victims of the Pleasant and Pearl street fire and one stood out to her, melted her heart deeply. Zach Webster lost his home and much of his belonging in the tragic fire. But, he also lost his dog. Bell, too, knows the pain of losing a beloved pet. Her mom explained that the family had a dog who was older and had recently passed away; his name was Rico.
“Vayda asked if we could buy Zach a new dog,” Thrush said. Of course mom explained to the youngster that Webster may not be quite ready for another dog but that it was a very nice thought.
All of the donations that were collected, and the matching portion from Burdick, was dropped off with Jacie Glover, owner of J&M’s Closet in the Bradford Mini Mall on Thursday night. Mom had arranged the drop off and stated that she wanted a location and person she could trust with such a generous gift — everyone told her to contact Glover. All of the monies will be distributed equally in the coming days.
