Girls pitch in to help tsunami, train-wreck victims
Two Martinez girls say they are doing everything they can to help the people affected by the Dec. 26 tsunami tragedy and the Jan. 6 train wreck in Graniteville.
Rebecca Childress (left), 10, and Lauren Cole, 11, collected $153 at a lemonade stand they set up at the Macaroni Grill in Augusta. The money will go toward relief efforts for victims of south Asia's tsunami and Graniteville's train wreck. Both are fifth-graders at Blue Ridge Elementary.
Photo by Quandra Collins
"When we heard about the tsunami, we wanted to help," said Rebecca Childress, 10, a fifth-grader at Blue Ridge Elementary School. "We wanted to start a fund-raiser."
After brainstorming for several hours, Rebecca said she had the perfect idea, and it also included helping out those in need in Graniteville.
"I thought it would be good if we had a lemonade sale where people could make donations," she said.
On Jan. 8, Rebecca and her best friend, Lauren Cole, 11, devoted more than three hours to making three to four gallons of Kool-Aid lemonade at Macaroni Grill in Augusta, where Lauren's father, Bryan, is the restaurant's manager.
Rebecca said money was also collected for victims of the Graniteville train crash because that disaster occurred so close to home.
The crash involved a Norfolk Southern freight train that was diverted onto the wrong track, hitting a parked locomotive and causing a chlorine leak that sent hundreds to the hospital. Ten have died.
"It's a nightmare to think of what they are going through,'' Rebecca said.
Rebecca and Lauren, who raised $153, said $48 will be given to an Aiken church to help Graniteville victims and $105 will be donated to the Red Cross for the tsunami relief fund. The tsunami, which occurred as a result of a major earthquake at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, has claimed more than 150,000 lives.
Lauren said it felt good to raise money to help out those in need.
"I couldn't imagine something like that happening here," said Lauren of both incidents. "But if it did, I know I would want people to help me."
When the girls realized that they would have to sacrifice their Saturday to help those in need, they said they had no qualms about it because they imagined themselves in the same situation and wanted to help.
"I think the people will be really, really happy that people care so much about them to give them money," Rebecca said.