Stacy Agarwal said her daughter, Ava, 9, and her neighborhood friends, Akshaya Thiruveedi, 9, and Akash Thiruveedi, 7, sold lemonade in their Centerville neighborhood to raise money to buy items to donate to the Humane Society.
“They came up with the idea and just worked really hard to sell lemonade and come up with the money,” Agarwal said.
Ava said the trio was thinking about a way to help animals and came up with an idea.
“All we could really think about was doing a lemonade stand, so we started doing it and then we raised all of the money for this. We raised $500,” she said.
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Brian Weltge, director of the Humane Society of Greater Dayton, said that “when you see young children like this going out-of-their-way to help animals, it just gives you hope in our community that the animals have a safety net of people who really care for them. This is going to help so many animals, and we are so grateful.”
The items purchased were part of the society's "wish list" that can be found at www.hsdayton.org. The items range from toys to blankets to kitty litter.
As he looked at the cart containing an abundance of goods delivered by the three kids, Weltge said this kind of donation is heartwarming.
“We have all kinds of needs. We are a very large not-for-profit but we always need help,” he said.
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