By Paul Silverfarb
Sentinel Editor
A weather-loving, not to mention a kind-hearted, four-year-old from Greenwich wanted to give back. And his mom was more than willing to accept the challenge.
After seeing the destruction in Texas from Hurricane Harvey, L.A. Pesce and his mother, Shannon, decided the time was now to help out the Lone Star State in any way they could.
“It’s very rewarding. What we are going through in the world, there’s a lot of negative, unfortunately,” Shannon said. “It’s nice to have some positive coming, especially from a youth. He is a four-year-old boy that’s innocent and doesn’t know what’s really going on in the world. For me, it’s rewarding to see him want to help others.”
Thanks to L.A. wanting to give back, Shannon helped set up a simple lemonade stand. But that simple stand last weekend raised over $1,100 for the American Red Cross in just three hours.
L.A. Pesce is really into weather events, such as lightning, tornados, hurricanes and thunderstorms. It’s to the point where Shannon downloaded a weather app on L.A.’s iPad and he checks it every day. That’s where he got clued into Hurricane Harvey and its path to the coast of Texas.
“He saw a commercial on Nickelodeon where it had ‘We are thinking of you, Texas’ and had visuals of people hurt, people fleeing their homes and animals being rescued,” Shannon said. “He turned to me and said, ‘Mom, is this Texas where the hurricane was?’ When I told him yes, his face went blank and it scared him. He felt bad for the kids.”
That’s when Shannon said a light bulb went off in her child’s head and all he wanted to do was help the people in Texas who were affected by the hurricane.
“He asked how he could help them and then came up with the idea of buying them toys,” Shannon said. “I told him that they need more things than just toys, and then I suggested that maybe we can do a lemonade stand. We can make money and we will give it to them. So I chose the Red Cross and it was a really positive experience.”
In less than a day, L.A. and his mother put together a lemonade stand. Actually, the stand had much more than lemonade; there were cookies, donuts, cupcakes and water. In addition to the food and drink, there were conversations with members of the community, talking about family and friends who were affected by Harvey.
“It was really close to home, even if we are so far away,” Shannon said. “It felt good that other kids were coming, some of our family was there and people that drove by the stand stopped by to get some stuff and to talk to us. People were so sweet.”
In just three short hours, L.A.’s idea about helping the victims of Hurricane Harvey turned into raising $1,136.
“This was extremely rewarding,” Shannon said. “The love that you could feel was swarming. People stayed for 45 minutes at a time and gathered and talked over lemonade. People that normally wouldn’t have gotten together, were together. People stopped and gave us money from their car window. It was so rewarding and a positive experience, knowing all this was going for a good cause.”
So Shannon, along with L.A. and her daughter, Addison, took the money to the American Red Cross, knowing that their simple act of giving will help someone in need.
“I think people need to do more of these things,” Shannon said. “It really brings a positive effect on our children. Doing something like this to help other people is a great feeling and I know how much it meant to L.A. to do this.”
