Milan is almost four years old. The integrity of his lemonade stand is not to be trifled with.
His grandmother, the owner of The Cookie House in Northridge, relayed a second-hand story from the lemonade stand her grandchildren hosted in support of the Stollery Children’s Hospital, her fifth, Milan’s first, last Sunday, Aug. 25.
“A lady came and got a bottle of lemonade and bought it and all that, but apparently he chased her down — he didn't see her pay!” Rhonda Kelloway said Monday. “So she had to come back to the stand and confirm with my husband.
“He just turned to her and he said ‘I'm sorry; our security team takes their job very seriously!'”
No one is suggesting the Kelloway clan is timing its growth to Simply Supper’s annual Lemonade Stand Day, but it sure has worked out for the Stollery. Kelloway estimates her children’s children – just one, Lily, in the first year, 2020, Milan joining in 2021 and Summer in 2022, have raised in excess of $15,000 in the last five years.
A fourth, another boy, was at this year’s stand for observational purposes. He’ll be ready to work in 2025.
“There were more than one and more than two moments where literally a man in a truck or convertible, you know by themselves, they pull up, they run up, they give the girls at the table 20 bucks, 15 bucks and say ‘No, I don't need anything,’ and jump back in their vehicle and they’re gone,” Kelloway said. “It was awesome, actually, to see that.”
St. Albert-wide, “Junior Lemon Squeezers” set up 29 lemonade stands for the fundraiser, according to a spokesperson.
They included the sons of McKaela Bass, Beckham, 7, and Cruz, 2, and three of their cousin, all first-timers.
"We took part because the Stollery is such a great cause and I loved the fact the kids could get involved and give back while also having fun planning and running their lemonade stand," Bass said.
They raised about $750 – not bad for a first squeeze.
Fundraising totals for 2024 won’t be made public until Sept. 15, but the program has seen almost 8,000 kids raise more than $2 million since its inception in 2014 including $470,100 raised at 520 stands in 2023, according to a website.
The 600-plus stands expected to take part last Sunday were specifically raising money for the Stollery’s Pediatric Diabetes Education Centre (PDEC). The PDEC provides assessment, treatment, education, and ongoing followup for children across much of Western Canada with diabetes, including Type 1 and Type 2. This includes three half-days of “intense” outpatient support for patients and their families at diagnosis, twice-yearly followup appointments, support for schools and caregivers, nutrition education and round-the-clock telephone support for diabetes-related emergencies.
Kelloway’s involvement began not with an interaction with the Stollery, but from a friend who asked her via a text message if she’d be willing to sell her some cookies from the business to the fundraiser. When she found out what it was all about, Kelloway donated the cookies, put sugar to lemon juice and the rest is sweet, refreshing history.
As fate would have it, those intersections with the services provided at Stollery would come.
“Two of my four grandchildren really needed the Stollery at different times in their life, and so that's probably part of the reason it's, you know, called ‘near and dear,’ (to us),” Kelloway said. “So yeah, we were lucky. Yesterday was a great day for everybody.”
The Cookie House operation has expanded to include lemonade and cookie sales, and a free by-donation face-painting station manned by Lily, now 7.
“They get it,” Kelloway says of the local lollypop brigade. “They never look to have anything for themselves. It’s a great experience for them and for me to do it with them. It’s something to do with the grandkids.”
