Merced girls take to baking to help the needy

It started with a pile of fallen leaves on an elementary school campus, and it ended with a more than $500 donation for the free meal the Merced County Rescue Mission feeds to the less fortunate on Thanksgiving Day.

Emma Dickson, Georgia Lodwick and Elsa Van Dyke, all 8-year-olds from Merced, donated the money they raised during a recent bake sale to the mission on Wednesday because they said they wanted to do something nice for others. Elsa said the bake sale brought in exactly $557.10.

The girls, who are third-grade classmates at Burbank Elementary, said they were raking up a pile of leaves during recess and talking about how they should do the same for their neighbors that weekend. But it rained before they could put that plan into action, so their focus changed.

“Then we thought, ‘Let’s do a bake sale,’” Georgia said.

Originally, the girls said in unison, they wanted to go door-to-door to sell chocolate chip cookies, brownies and lemon cookies, but the sheer numbers of baked goods was too much to handle. They decided they would use Facebook, email and text messages to bring the customers with a sweet tooth to them.

Emma said she goes to church near the mission, so she knew there were people in need who might go without during the holidays. “I thought about how much fun Thanksgiving is,” Emma said.

With some help from the adults in their lives, the girls made a countless number of goods – enough to finish off a 5-pound bag of flour.

Elsa said the whole thing came together over about 24 hours and the goodies sold out in about two hours. “It makes us feel good and, like, happy,” she said.

Their parents said the girls had been talking about and brainstorming the sale all week.

It costs about $1.95 to feed each person who will get a warm holiday meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, pie and more on Thursday, according to mission staff. So the girls raised enough to feed about 286 people.

Merced County Rescue Mission CEO Bruce Metcalf said the mission occasionally gets donations through the efforts of children. He said children have “tender hearts” and often want to do something when they hear someone is in need.

“I think that we all need to be led by the example of children,” he said. “I think it’s a good thing for all of us.”

This story was originally published November 26, 2014 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Merced girls take to baking to help the needy."