For these kids, summer is about helping others

Featured image: (back from left) Pete Watson, Ian Lightheart, Lachlan Adam, Sam Watson; (front from left) Amy Bennett, Sara Lightheart, Georgia Adam, Levi Adam, Ella Lightheart, Tori Bennett, Imogen Watson and Seth Adam

A group of local cottagers have found a way to turn summer fun into cash for charities.

Four years ago, the dirty dozen, as they’re affectionately known, began making crafts to sell at roadside at their families’ adjacent cottages. All of the families hail from southern Ontario – three from Toronto, one from Barrie and one from Bradford – but they spend their summers on Jessop Lake.

That first year they made beaded jewellery and keychains, netting $100. Some of the kids took that money and went shopping for groceries that they then used to stock shelves at the food bank.

It was such a success that they did it again the next year, that time donating $100 to the ALS society in honour of a hockey coach who had the disease.

Last year, the kids decided to switch it up – there’s only so much demand for jewellery on a quiet cottage road – and made mobiles. At the end of the summer they took the $50 they’d earned to stuff a backpack for the annual Huntsville Staples school supply drive.

And this summer, they made a variety of cottage signs, candle holders, picture frames, magnets and walking sticks. All of them were made mostly with found or recycled materials – pieces of wood discarded in the forest, sticks, stones from the beach, and aluminum cans.

Their customers are usually local cottagers and friends, even the local garbage collectors stop by to check out their wares. They’ve had requests for custom signs, which they gladly obliged, and sometimes they made custom signs for people they knew were coming to visit just in case they might want one. They always did.

This writer took home a stone and wood sign that says ‘Fun’. It was well worth the three dollar cost – along with a donation to top it up to $10 because three just seemed too little for their effort – and now hangs proudly next to my front door.

In all, the crafts were big sellers this summer – by the Labour Day long weekend they’d collected about $250. All of the funds will go to the Down Syndrome Association.

Next year, who knows what these creative and generous kids will come up with? If you venture down Jingo Lake Road, you just might find out and maybe you’ll come home with a craft or two.

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