Amanda Belzowski has taken a summertime tradition and is showing other kids how easy it can be to make a difference.
A decade after Belzowski’s parents set her up with her first lemonade stand, the 12-year-old Bayview and York Mills resident has raised more than $150,000 toward pediatric heart and stroke research.
Her annual event, held on Post Road this year, recently pulled in $16,000. “It just feels so good inside to help other people,” she says. Belzowski has come a long way since raising $500 in her first year. Since then, she has taken up other causes, too, spreading awareness about malaria and supporting the MS Society.
She has also started to do some public speaking in the hopes of inspiring other young people to get involved, visiting elementary schools, high schools and universities.
“We really need to get out there and make a difference,” she says. Belzowski’s own desire to do this has earned her the Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy Award and the Heart and Stroke Philanthropy Award, to name a few. It all began when, as a toddler, Belzowski asked her parents for a lemonade stand after her family stopped — on the way home from the Ride for Heart — at one run by two little girls. Given the timing and since she didn’t understand money, her parents set her up with a sponsor sheet.
Asked if she would be doing it again next year, she said yes. When Belzowski was six, she says a man thanked her and told her that he might not be alive if it weren’t for her efforts. “I think that was the moment when I really realized how I was changing people’s lives, how I was making a difference in the world and what I was doing was so important to help these people,” she says. Belzowski says she encourages other young people to go and get active in their communities.
She uses her own story to illustrate how simple the idea can be, whether it’s a lemonade stand or a car wash. “I hope that kids will really take away that message that it’s achievable, that it’s possible,” she says.
Belzowski’s little brother is already on board. For the last two years, she has been joined by four-year-old Joshua, who runs a cookie counter at the event. Belzowski says she hopes to bring her fundraising total to $200,000. She will be participating in the Ride for Heart event with her whole family on June 6. Donations can continue to be made through her website at www.lemonade4 heart.org, she says.
Belzowski decided to direct the money to pediatric research, in particular, when she realized that it’s not only adults who are at risk. “Kids have heart attacks and kids have strokes, so it’s very important to raise awareness for that,” she says.
