Girl Power at Work

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Sophia Haslett, rear center, and her friends Christina Hartley, left, and her sister Miranda with an unidentified woman who is a recipient of their fundraising.  Photo courtesy of Alexandria Phillips
Sophia Haslett, rear center, and her friends Christina Hartley, left, and her sister Miranda with an unidentified woman who is a recipient of their fundraising.
Photo courtesy of Alexandria Phillips.

Three local girls spent the ski-week break raising money by selling homemade lemonade and popcorn in order to buy take-out meals for homeless people.

Sophia Haslett, 13, a seventh-grader at Thurston Middle School, recruits friends, neighbors and relatives during school breaks to join her philanthropic project, Hamburgers for the Homeless, says her mother, Alexandria Phillips.

In her most recent effort, Sophia and her friends, sisters Christina and Miranda Hartley, raised $135 hustling for donors on Cress Street over a few days, Phillips said. She enlisted her parents to assist by making two runs to In-n-Out Burger for provisions and chaperoning while they passed out meals on the Main Beach boardwalk.

Sophia previously has taken her donated hoard to a local burger joint, Husky Boy, whose owners know the girls and offer them a discount, Phillips said. “It’s a community supported effort,” she said.

In a video the girls made recently, Sophia wisely notes that “it’s not only a hamburger in the package,” which she hands out. “It’s love and joy. We’re handing out smiles,” she says.

Sophia and her mother previously volunteered as guest chefs with a church group preparing a meal once a week for residents of the Friendship Shelter, which helps homeless people re-enter the mainstream. Though mother and daughter are no longer involved, Phillips thinks that served as the seed for Sophia’s child-sized charity.

“She’s decided she can do this for herself,” said Phillips, a civil law litigator, who observes how smart, typically quiet kids transform and assertively ask passerby to help their cause. “I felt encouraged by this new generation that has rolled up their sleeves to help the helpless in their community completely on their own initiative,” she said.

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