A sweet and generous five-year-old in Michigan emptied her treasured Piggy Bank after she found out her best friend at kindergarten had no money for Milk. This simple and heartwarming generosity led to her grandmother starting a crowdfunding campaign to ensure all kids at the school had access to milk. That campaign is bringing in thousands of dollars from moved donors.
Grandmother spots Sunshine emptying her piggy bank
It happened a couple of weeks ago, when Jackie Oelfke spotted her granddaughter, Sunshine Oelfke, emptying out the contents of her piggy bank.
The five-year-old carefully stacked her coins and crumpled notes, counting the money as she went.
Michigan kindergartner empties piggy bank to help friend https://t.co/G9LeB2DER5
— Jan (@ilsinya7grto) October 18, 2017
According to a report by CBS News, her grandmother initially thought she was playing with the money. However, the next minute she saw Sunshine placing the money in a plastic bag. Intrigued at what her granddaughter was doing, Jackie asked Sunshine what she was planning to do with the money, who responded that she was taking it to school.
Sunshine went on to say it was for milk money for her friend Layla, because her mother doesn’t have any milk money, but she does. Oelfke was moved to tears by Sunshine’s response and wrote on Facebook that she handed the backpack to Sunshine, who stowed away the bag of money.
Grandmother starts fundraiser so all kids can have milk
As noted by KTLA News, a couple of days later, Oelfke decided to start a GoFundMe campaign in an effort to help Sunshine raise milk money for her friends. She wrote on the crowdfunding page that her granddaughter wants all her friends to have access to milk during their snack break.
As reported by CBS News, it turns out around half of the 20 students in Sunshine’s kindergarten class don’t get milk at school. The milk reportedly costs $0.45 per carton, which adds up to $180 each month.
This is the sweetest @gofundme I have ever seen. https://t.co/i2fLOSoeWh
— Ben Holsen (@BenHolsen963) October 18, 2017
The crowdfunding campaign was initially set up with a target of $700, to ensure all the children received milk every day for the balance of the semester.
It was later updated to $5,000. However, at the time of writing, it has attracted donations adding up to an amazing $7,981 from 307 donors.
After the first week, when the campaign had raised over $1,000, Sunshine excitedly told her grandmother that her whole class had milk that day. With the current balance on the GoFundMe page, those same children are assured of a daily carton of milk for more than the rest of the school year.
Oelfke told CBS News that Sunshine doesn’t really understand the huge impact she has made and doesn’t think what she started was a big deal. However, she added that her granddaughter now knows she can achieve anything she puts her mind to.