Plano 8-Year-Old Raises More Than $1,000 For Healthcare Workers Through Labor Day Lemonade Stand

PLANO, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - A Plano child's simple gesture to help is not only getting a lot of attention, it's raising a lot of money.

A recent drive past a children's hospital in Plano got 8-year-old Mimi Saleh thinking.

"I said, 'Dad I wanna do a lemonade stand,' and then my dad said, 'OK do you want to do it normally or do you want to do it like to help people?' I said I wanted to help people," said Saleh.

A trip to the store for supplies was only part of her Labor Day plan to support healthcare heroes hard at work saving patients with COVID-19.

"I just wanted to help the nurses," said Saleh. "I kind of picture in my head sometimes like nurses having to run to rooms and stuff and asking, 'Are you OK? do you need anything'?"

Saleh's  friends helped her with signs promoting that proceeds from the lemonade stand would be presented to Texas Health Presbyterian in the form of gift cards for healthcare workers.

On Monday, Sept. 6, the little girl with a big idea raised more than $1,000.

"I was so proud of her she's always thinking of other people and how she can help them," Petra Ray, Saleh's mother. "We moved from Michigan a couple years ago so we had friends in Michigan who were sending us money for virtual glasses of lemonade."

Money is still coming in.

A fund has been set up by the family's church if people want to keep donating.

Saleh said she is already at work on figuring out her next Labor Day of love.

"Maybe I'll help the police and the firefighters," she said.