Sisters sell cookies to raise money for sick children

Sisters Lauren and Olivia Barrowcliffe have raised $770.70 for Starship Children's Hospital by selling cookies.

Lauren Barrowcliffe, 10, and Olivia Barrowcliffe, 9, have raised a serendipitous amount of $770.70 for Starship Children’s Hospital by selling their great-aunt Chris Edmeades’ cookies.

Mum Narelle Barrowcliffe said Lauren just wanted to do some good.

“She was thinking of how she can help people. She’d heard of Starship before and decided that she wanted to raise money for sick kids.”

Lauren put her thinking cap on and created a stand to sell Kiwi Cookie Company cookies, designed and created by Edmeades at the Kaipaki-based The Olde Creamery Cafe.

“[I’m] really proud. This is completely her idea that she came up with, I just tried to enable it and foster it because if people could do more things like this, that’s what we want to encourage,” Narelle says.

“Aunty Chris made the cookies and then provided them to the girls at a reduced rate. Any profit that they raised went to Starship.”

The cookies were all beautifully decorated and all different types, including Peppa Pig, Batman, Santa, teddy bears and dinosaurs.

Olivia and Lauren Barrowcliffe sold cookies at the Pirongia Market and Te Awamutu's Black Friday Blowout Street Party to fundraise for Starship Children's Hospital.

With the help of her sister Olivia, Lauren took her cookie stand to the Pirongia Market and then to the Te Awamutu Black Friday Blowout Street Party.

“It was a real kind of community feel. Not only did we have the support from the Kiwi Cookie Company, but there was also another stallholder Sisterly Love Flowers & Crafts. They donated a big gift basket to the girls to take up to Starship,” Narelle said.

“I just love that the community got in behind it too. There were so many people that came up to the stand and shared their experiences of either their child being at Starship, or themselves as a kid. It did touch a lot of people, which is really humbling for my kids, and myself, to hear those personal stories.”

Jesse Wood is a multimedia journalist based in Te Awamutu. He joined the Te Awamutu Courier and NZME in 2020.

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