When three-pint sized community leaders participated in the Terry Fox Run this fall, they felt inspired to help more people in their community.
Isabelle Deslauriers, 6, her sister Amélie Deslauriers, 9, and their friend Anna Shott, 6, decided they wanted to continue helping those in need.
Shott quickly realized she couldn’t run across Canada like Terry Fox, and instead the girls, who are in Grade 1 and Grade 4, brainstormed ways they could help.
The SIGIS students learned how to finger-knit from an after-school program the previous year, and decided making scarves was the best option to raise some money. The girls originally hoped to make scarves for babies at the NICU; however, they quickly learned the infants might not need scarves, and instead settled on selling them to raise money for the Stollery Children's Hospital.
“Isabelle just said it, and I said ‘Can I help?’” Shott said of their knitting project. Soon all three girls were knitting yarn with their fingers after school and on the weekends.
After school and on the weekends they could be found finger-weaving their projects. It takes about 15 or 20 minutes to make each scarf, and they made sizes for kids and adults.
The girls studied their market, and made scarves for different demographics of kids, making sure they picked up Minecraft green for gaming enthusiasts.
The trio worked for months, leading up to a sale at their school where they sold dozens of scarves for $5 to their pals.
The girls made sales to family members too, and all together raised about $315 to buy some items for babies staying at the Stollery.
The girls said it felt “really good” to be helping the young babies at the hospital.
After getting in touch with a nurse who worked there, their moms bought much-needed items, like sound machines and infant gloves, to drop off this week for the babies.
Their moms, Cheryl Deslauriers and Ellen Shott say they are both immensely proud of their girls for sticking with the project for so many months and wanting to help out sick kids.
"Their genuine dedication to do something with what ability they had, one of the new skills they learned, that was really nice," Cheryl Deslauriers said.
"It was a good lesson in perseverance and sticking to it and they were gung-ho about it," Cheryl said of the girls.
Ellen Shott said their efforts really touched her heart.
"They're just six years old and they came up with the idea to do what Terry Fox did. That for me just was so heartwarming," Ellen Shott said.
The trio have decided their next fundraising project is to make and sell yarn braids that fashionistas can clip into their hair, although this was news to both moms.
