Six year old’s cookie fundraiser for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society sells out in 90 minutes

 Sienna Storey, 6, and Elizabeth Paradiso of Sweet Elizabeth’s Cakes sold chocolate chip cookies all day Friday, June 28, to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  (Joel Frady/for NewsWorks)

Sienna Storey, 6, and Elizabeth Paradiso of Sweet Elizabeth’s Cakes sold chocolate chip cookies all day Friday, June 28, to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. (Joel Frady/for NewsWorks)

Six-year-old Sienna Storey and Elizabeth Paradiso, owner of Sweet Elizabeth’s Cakes in Manayunk, spent Friday morning baking cookies for a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society fundraiser at the shop. 

The cookies they baked were gone in a mere 90 minutes, causing the young fundraiser to return to the shop to prepare more cookies – and participate in her first television interview.

By closing time on Friday, Sweet Elizabeth’s had sold more than 300 cookies.

“It turned out to be a much bigger event than we ever imagined,” said Paradiso.

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Between cookie sales and other donations collected at the store and on the street during the Manayunk Arts Festival, organizers projected the fundraiser’s earnings at approximately $330.

Storey was all smiles as she talked about the experience, especially when asked about her interview with a local TV station. 

“I was a little nervous but it actually turned out really good,” said Storey. She illustrated how to scoop and flatten the cookie dough for the cameras. 

Jacqueline Banks-Serra, Storey’s aunt, said her reaction was much bigger when the story played on the evening news.

“When we saw it on the news she was jumping up and down and we couldn’t hear anything,” said Banks-Serra. “Thank goodness we were able to record it.”

Banks-Serra and Storey’s mother, Michelle, were both extremely happy with the results of the fundraiser and Storey’s dedication.

“It made me really proud my daughter was doing something so special and able to share with other kids out there,” said Michelle, who has held several fundraisers for the LLS in recent years to honor the memory of her grandmother, Martha Rossier, who died of leukemia in 2004.

Michelle added that she was touched to see her daughter “do her own fundraiser and not be my little sidekick.”

Sienna Storey said she learned that “it was a lot of work” to organize a fundraiser but noted that she looks forward to holding another one with the help of her mother and younger brother Carson, 3, when she returns home to St. Louis, Mo.

Michelle Storey said she would be “very honored” to be her daughter’s sidekick for a change.

“I’m all for it,” she said.

To find out more about the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, visit www.lls.org.

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