Typically it marks the beginning of summer.
Young capitalists and eager entrepreneurs dot the corners of suburban streets with lemonade stands, car washes and bake sales.
But rarely do you come across a group of young women, where the ring of a Barbie cash register marks another dollar earned for Gilda’s Club Capital Region of New York.
A cardboard sign in front of their stand reads: Please! Support Gilda’s Club.
The girls, who live in a development across Albany Shaker Road from the South Colonie School campus, hold car washes, sell cookies and Kool-Aid, and have organized a collection of cans and bottles, with proceeds to be donated to the cancer support group.
They have taken it upon themselves, with a nudge from their parents, to continue their corner street stands and expand their fundraising into their schools.
The girls’ philanthropy began with little more than $50 in profits from a car wash and lemonade stand sales.
The idea to donate the earnings came about when the Cronin sisters, Julia, 7, and Lily, 5, couldn’t decide how to divvy up their profits with fellow entrepreneurs Elizabeth `Lizzy` Green, 7, and Emily Green, 10.
`We just wanted to do it. We thought we would get a lot of money, but it didn’t split even,` said Julia.
The girls decided to donate the money, and after some discussion and a suggestion by Julia and Lily’s mother, Alisa, they chose to give to Gilda’s Club.
Soon profits from the car wash, lemonade-stand dollars and neighborhood donations brought the total to just under $100.
Now, more than $100 later, the Cronins, Greens and FitzGibbon sisters have pulled in other neighborhood girls to help with the fundraising. They also have expanded their bottle drives in the neighborhood and their respective schools.
In between sales at their bake stand last week, the talk was of other fundraising methods.
`I don’t know what our goal is,` said Molly FitzGibbon, one of the car wash entrepreneurs. She turns 12 on Sept. 27.
As one of the older girls, she handles the money, and can be seen landing sales from passing cars.
Molly said she and the other girls haven’t done anything like this before. `I don’t know what our goal is ` $300 maybe,` she said.
The fundraisers have struck a personal note for the families of the girls. Many have been touched by cancer in some form or another.
Mary FitzGibbon, mother of Molly, Danielle and Teresa, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2003.
`I’m going on three years of being clean. I consider myself lucky,` said Mary FitzGibbon, who endured six months of chemotherapy and radiation to combat the disease.
FitzGibbon said she didn’t use the services of Gilda’s Club, but she can sympathize with those who have. Surviving cancer made FitzGibbon and her mother, who was also diagnosed with cancer, realize how important places like Gilda’s Club are, she said. The club offers emotional and social support to those living with cancer.
Once FitzGibbon’s daughters and the neighborhood girls opted to donate to Gilda’s Club, she and the other mothers gladly volunteered their services.
FitzGibbon and Teresa Green, mother of Lizzy, Emily and Maria, 13, baked the goods for last week’s sale, and they helped oversee the operation as the girls landed one sale after another. They look on as the group proudly shouts their cause to passers-by.
`Support Gilda’s Club,` one girl shouts, as a gray sedan turns the corner.
`When they decided to give the money to Gilda’s Club, they got more excited and wanted to get more money,` said FitzGibbon.
News of the donation has touched Gilda’s Club administrators and caught them off guard.
`This sort of epitomizes what Gilda’s Club is all about. We are about building a community. This a great parallel to what we are doing, but says so much about that community,` said Sheri Scavone Gilda’s Club Capital Region New York president and chief operating officer.
Every donation amount is critical, she said.“