Reagan Bajus, her family and friends raised more than $6,000 for the Catherine Violet Hubbard’s cause. Catherine was killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
When 10-year-old Reagan Bajus of New Canaan showed her parents a charity she found that was raising money to build an animal sanctuary, she wanted to help. It was being created in the memory of a little girl that had died, and Reagan wanted to help this little girl’s dream of caring for animals live on through the development of an animal sanctuary.
This little girl was Catherine Violet Hubbard. A precious first-grader, she had a huge heart for animals and their welfare, and dreamed of one day having an animal sanctuary to care for animals big and small. Then her life was lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But her dream was not.
Catherine’s parents are building the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary. In June of 2014, Connecticut transferred 34 acres of state-owned land in Newtown to Catherine’s foundation for use as the sanctuary’s home. As stated by the foundation, it will be “a place where suffering ends and healing begins.”
Reagan’s idea was to rally her friends to put together a lemonade stand and bake sale to raise money for the foundation. Her parents contacted the foundation and received permission from Catherine’s mother, Jenny Hubbard, to host the stand and use their logos and pictures for marketing. Reagan and her mom worked with a graphic designer to design a flyer that Reagan insisted on taking to most every business and store in New Canaan, as well as to many in Darien, asking them to put it in their window to promote traffic. Lawn signs were made and installed, and Reagan rallied some friends (and their moms) from New Canaan Country School, which she had attended, and Greenwich Academy, her current school. The family used the circular drive in front of their house as a ‘drive-through’ lemonade stand and bake sale.
The day of the event, 10 adults and 10 kids worked all day, manning the booth and drumming up traffic along Ponus Ridge with posters and the kinds of voices only fifth graders can produce. There was a steady stream of people from many towns. At one point, five New Canaan Police Department cruisers came to support the cause.
“The mantra was, ‘Take what you want, give what you can.’ And people gave. When they opened the donation box, an enormous pile of money fell out. And some exceedingly generous checks. Over $6,000 was raised.
The kids are ecstatic that they not only are going to be able to turn over this amount of money to help the Hubbards build the animal sanctuary in honor of their daughter, but also have the large sum represent to the Hubbards how much people still and always will care about the Sandy Hook families. When all the money is collected, the friends that worked so hard all day will join the Bajus family in traveling to Newtown to present the money to Jenny Hubbard, who has kindly offered to give them a tour of the grounds that will be developed into the animal sanctuary, hopefully in a matter of a year or two.
Part of the flyer promoting the lemonade stand that raised money for an animal sanctuary in memory of a child killed in Newtown.