'It feels good to help': Girls sell lemonade to buy pizza for ER workers amid pandemic

LUCAS - Three girls raised money from a lemonade stand last weekend and bought pizza and more for three local hospitals' ER staffs on Sunday.

The girls, Mallory Shields, 13, Addie Shields, 11, and Spencer Mott, 8,  raised just under $200 in 6 to 7 hours Saturday outside their house along Ohio 39 in the village.

They did it all on their own — the set up, making signs and walking around town square putting them up, and making the fresh lemonade and using their savings to buy all needed supplies.

Parent Robin Shields said days later he is "still absolutely blown away by how well they dedicated their time to help others. They decided that all the money raised they wanted to do something nice to all the health workers in the ERs around town. ...

"So with all that we were able to provide pizzas,cheesy bread, pop and cookies to three local Hospital ERs —- University Hospitals Samaritan Medical Center in Ashland, OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital and Ontario Avita Hospital — all supplied with lunch from three little girls and a lemonade stand."

Robin said he "just wanted to share the story in hopes that maybe this will inspire the world, and maybe some other little ones and adults that life still is loving and caring even in this scary time.... That people can still be people and that people can still care about one another right now."

Parent Kate Shields said the girls and their lemonade stand attracted a lot of motorists and people who stopped by too.

Kate Shields said when they delivered the pizzas the girls had bought with money from their lemonade stand, the nurses were all grateful, kind and had wonderful things to say to the girls.

"As a momma nothing makes my heart prouder than to see the joy they find in serving others. Maybe in two weeks we’ll try again and serve another population that has been working hard while the world is a scary place," she said, adding the girls' plan for their next project is to provide food for the Richland County Sheriff's Office.

Mallory, who is a seventh grader at Ashland Middle School, said, "It feels good to help, especially during these times right now when people are starting to lose hope, and we don't see very much light at the end of the tunnel. It just makes you feel good to know that you maybe brightened someone's day and maybe showed them that someone cares about what they do for all of us during this pandemic.

"I think overall I'm doing OK in school. It's been a little stressful and hard to keep up on all of my assignments but overall I'm managing quite well, I'd say," Mallory said.

Kate Shields said at some point if the lemonade stand continues to do well, the family will do one for the Juvenile Diabetes Research fund in honor of Mallory, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 6.

"Our family too knows how important all hospital staff are," the mother said.

Spencer, who is a second grader at Lucas Schools, said, “Home school isn’t as fun as I thought it would be in the beginning. I miss being at school with all my friends and teachers. It felt good to give to people that were doing so much for others that needed it. I thought that I could think of others too.”

Addie, a fifth grader at Taft Elementary School, said she feels really good about giving back.

"I have always wanted to give back and when we did that, it just felt so good. I like home-schooling. It is just kind of hard because you don’t have teachers there so you can ask questions, but other than that it is pretty fun because you can have lunch whenever and you can get your stuff done really quick and have the rest of the day to do whatever you want to do," she said.

Mallory and Addie are daughters of Robin and Kate Shields and Shannon and Paul Minnich. Spencer is the daughter of Robin and Kate Shields and Jordan and Kylee Mott. 

lwhitmir@gannett.com

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Twitter: @LWhitmir