Two of Merrick’s youngest philanthropists recently completed their first fundraiser to benefit cancer research and animal welfare. The children of the Giraud family, Preston, 10, and Kaylee, 7, are students at John G. Dinkelmeyer Elementary School in Bellmore.
The duo sat outside their Merrick home at their handmade lemonade stand on June 6 and served dozens of customers. All in all, they raised $429 for the charities of their choice.
Preston chose to give his donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The choice of charity is of personal significance, he explained.
“There’s this kid in my school that has cancer, and because we’re donating it to charity, I thought it would be good to like help kids with cancer,” he said. “You should always help kids with cancer, despite not knowing them, since cancer is a very bad sickness that most people die from… whether even though you may not know those people, you should still help them.”
Kaylee, a longtime animal enthusiast, opted to put her money towards the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
“You should always help animals,” she said.
The children brought the idea of a lemonade stand to their parents, Jennifer and Pierre, over the winter.
“They were talking about having a lemonade sale, and then Preston said, ‘if we donate to charity, we’ll get a lot more money,’ so then I said, that’s true, people will want to donate,” she explained.
The children narrowed the possible charities down to St. Jude’s and the ASPCA, so they compromised and decided to donate to both.
“At the time, Preston picked St. Jude’s, he said, ‘I have such a good life, and other people don’t, so I want to help them,’ and Kaylee’s always been an animal lover, especially dogs, and she said she wanted to give it to sick or homeless animals,” Jennifer continued. “they’re great kids, and I’m so proud of the kind people that they are, and how they care about other people, and always want to be helpful.”
The grandparents of the family, Rosemary and Jim Gregus, were delighted to see the initiative that Preston and Kaylee had shown.
“I was really proud of them,” Rosemary said. “People were so generous. They would come and buy a lemonade and give them an extra $10 for their charity, and some people $20 — everybody was so generous. They never expected to earn so much money.”
