The donors: Jamie Cleghorn, Max Armstrong, Lynne Bridgman and Carolyn Armstrong
The gift: Raising $90,000 and climbing
The cause: Diabetes Canada’s summer camps
A few years ago, teenagers Jamie Cleghorn and Max Armstrong started a lemonade stand near their homes in Toronto to raise money for Diabetes Canada.
Jamie has Type 1 diabetes and the lemonade stand raised a few hundred dollars each year to help fund research into the disease. Soon, other families put up lemonade stands as well and, in 2014, the boys created “Put a Squeeze on Diabetes” with the help of their mothers, Lynn Bridgman and Carolyn Armstrong. The group has raised $90,000 in total so far and 95 families across the country will be putting up lemonade stands this summer. The money now goes to help fund 10 summer camps run by Diabetes Canada for children with Type 1 diabetes. Most of the stands will be set up this month and the group is hoping to raise $150,000, thanks in part to the sponsorship of car dealer Canada One Auto Group Inc.
The boys, who are now 17, will be running their stand once again on Saturday and this summer, Jamie will be working with Type 1 children as a counsellor at one of the camps in Ontario called Camp Huronda. “For us to see it grow has been so, so exciting,” Ms. Bridgman said. “There’s quite a community out there that wants these kids to succeed.”
Paul Waldie