When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. That’s exactly what 12-year-old Lauren Roach and 11-year-old Landry Nelon did when they heard about the shooting in Dallas that killed five police officers and injured seven officers and two civilians.
The two tweens, along with their friends Emmy Roberts, 9, and her sister Lily Roberts, 8, raised $10,000 for the Dallas Police Association by running a lemonade stand in North Dallas. The group sold 50 cent cups of homemade lemonade and baked goods, but many customers didn’t want anything in return for their donation.
“People were just driving by,” Lauren’s mother, Tracey Roach, told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. “They didn’t want lemonade. They didn’t want anything, just giving them 20s, 50s, you name it, just giving money. And everybody was saying, ‘Back the blue, back the blue, we support Dallas, we support families, help Dallas become a better place.’”
Lauren and Landry started off with a small goal, but after seeing the generosity of their neighbors, they quickly realized they could be making a huge difference.
“We felt really bad for all the victims’ families,” Lauren told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. “At first we thought we would get about $100, but after we got to about $5,000, we realized we could really get this really high.”
“We just really feel that every little penny counted,” Landry said.
The girls presented the check to officers at the Dallas Police Association on Monday, July 11, just four days after the attack. Other organizations to make donations include Southwest Airlines and the Houston Police Department. Some of the money will help support the families of slain officers Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Lorne Ahrens and Michael Smith.
As previously reported, shooter Micah Xavier Johnson opened fire on the crowd during a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest on Thursday, July 7. During negotiations with police, the gunman revealed he was “upset about Black Lives Matter” and “about the recent police shootings” of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. He said he wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers. After a long standoff, Johnson was killed by a bomb robot detonated by police.
