ARVADA, Col. (KDVR) — After a shooting in Arvada, Colorado took the life of Officer Gordon Beesley, two grade school girls and their friends wanted to help his family. So they decided to sell lemonade.
Memorials, processions and testimonials are certainly fitting, but for best friends Scarlet Reust and Addyson Elliott, they wanted to do little more.
Scarlett and Addyson went to work and did what kids do best, open up a lemonade stand. It did not take long until customers showed up, regardless of thirst.
“We sold about six jugs of the lemonade. People came and didn’t even want any lemonade but just gave us money. It just grew and grew and grew and grew and grew and grew,” said Scarlett.
“We were blown away by that, and they were like, ‘Maybe we could get to $500, let’s go out another day,'” Scarlett’s mother, Ashley Conn, said.
The girls presented two checks, each totaling $925, to Arvada Police Chief Link Strate.
“For those two little girls to think of him and to work on that lemonade stand and to give their proceeds to Officer Beesley’s family, will make a statement to this department that I don’t believe I can express,” Strate said.
Beesley was shot and killed, along with a 40-year-old man police described as a good Samaritan, while responding to a report of suspicious activity.
It was not just money the girls wanted to give to the Beesley family.
“We wanted them to feel happy even though they lost a very good family member,” said Addyson.