You know the saying: when life hands you lemons you make lemonade. For two Painesville kids, that meant making lemonade to help fund cancer research.
Last year, nine-year-old Olivia Snoply watched her older brother Eli struggle with synovial sarcoma, a usually aggressive and sometimes fatal form of cancer. This year, she decided to help kids like her brother by raising funds for St. Jude's Children's Research hospital with her annual lemonade stand.
Each year, her neighborhood hosts an annual garage sale, and Olivia and her neighborhood best friend, Mia, have made it their tradition to keep the neighborhood hydrated with a lemonade stand.
"When my daughter went to go make the lemonade this year, she read the label on the Country Time Lemonade packaging about Alex's Lemonade Stand," said Jill Snoply, Olivia's mother. "After reading all the information, she just looked at me and said ‘I’m going to raise money for kids with cancer.’”
When their son Eli was sick, the Snoply family relied on Cleveland's Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital for treatment. They turned to St. Jude's for a second opinion before continuing treatment in Cleveland.
"It is true that at St. Jude's no child or family is given a bill for their treatment, which we thought was awesome," Snoply said. "So, after looking up information, we decided to donate back to them. But, Rainbow Babies was awesome, just awesome for treatment."
The neighborhood kids raised $250 at their lemonade stand, which the Snoply family matched. Then, a neighborhood donor matched that again - donating a total of $800 to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.
