Ryleigh Gilliam of Noel, 8, had a lemonade stand on Main Street in Noel on May 30, where she also sold containers of worms for fishing. She gave all proceeds to the McDonald County Senior Center.
Eight-year-old Ryleigh Gilliam of Noel recently raised $201 for the McDonald County Senior Center in Noel.
Gilliam is the granddaughter of Rosey Hartley of Noel, who is the executive director of the Noel Housing Authority. One day Gilliam was visiting her grandmother at the housing authority, which is next door to the senior center, and she told her grandmother she wanted to have a lemonade stand and give the proceeds to the senior center, Hartley said. She told her grandmother she wanted to give money to the grandmas and grandpas at the senior center, Hartley said.
Hartley said she and Gilliam put in a garden every year and, as they were tilling the garden this year, there were a lot of worms.
“She said, ‘Why don’t we sell these worms when we do the lemonade?’” Hartley said.
They learned a lot about worms, Hartley said. The nightcrawlers come out at night, so when Gilliam would come to spend the night with her grandmother, they would go outside and look for them. They spent a month looking for worms, and they collected enough for 50 containers, Hartley said.
On Saturday, May 30, Hartley and Gilliam set up the lemonade stand with a cooler of worms on the side on Main Street in Noel.
Gilliam said she likes to fish in her grandma’s creek. She said her favorite part about catching worms has been spending time with her grandma. She said she wanted to raise money for the senior center “because the old people need it.”
“It really touches my heart that a child would come in and be with the center and she wants to help us.”
Louine Gardner
Executive Director of the McDonald County Senior Center
Hartley said, “The senior center’s been closed, so they’re not getting any revenue in. They do a lot of work for people in the housing authority too. A lot of residents in the housing authority go to the senior center for lunch.”
Hartley later said they sold more lemonade than worms, but when customers found out that Gilliam was donating the proceeds to the senior center, most of them made donations on top of their purchase. Thus, they raised $201.
Louine Gardner, executive director of the senior center, said, “It really touches my heart that a child would come in and be with the center and she wants to help us. It’s unusual for someone that young. It just makes me really proud of her. You just don’t see that very often in young children, that they want to do something like that.”