Nine-year-old Cameron Hughes was excited to run his first lemonade stand this summer and pocket a little cash. Then he thought someone else needed the money more than he did.
His mom, Debra Hughes, told him about a local group that saves dogs from puppy mills, and he decided immediately that he needed to fork over his hard-earned money to the Mill Dog Rescue Network.
"I can't stand an animal being in pain. My heart just can't stand it, because I'm such an animal lover," said Cameron, a fourth-grader from Colorado Springs. "I thought, ‘I'm going to give my money to them because they're little puppies.'"
He delivered $123 to Mill Dog Rescue in Peyton last weekend - $73 from his lemonade stand, plus the $50 he earned at his family's accompanying yard sale. He'll be back this weekend to donate an additional $100 from his proud grandparents and to start volunteering with the animals.
"That was incredibly sweet and selfless," said Theresa Strader, founder of Mill Dog Rescue. "He's a good adult in the making."
Mill Dog Rescue is a grass-roots nonprofit effort to save dogs from puppy mills - the young litters as well as the old dogs that are typically euthanized when they're too worn out to breed any longer. Many of the dogs suffer from neglect. They have wounded paws from living in wire cages often stacked on top of one another, and rotting teeth.
Strader said the all-volunteer group has rescued 1,146 dogs since it was founded in 2007, nursed them back to health, and adopted them out. Mill Dog Rescue has already expanded from chicken coops in Strader's backyard to an 11,000-square-foot kennel in Peyton. She said, to her knowledge, Cameron is the most generous child donor they've had.
Cameron walked a 5-year-old chocolate Lab named Kodiak when he visited the dozens of dogs at Mill Dog Rescue, and he was engulfed in a frenzy of yelping and licking by a litter of cocker spaniel puppies.
"They all tackled me. It was fun," said Cameron, who owns two cockers. "I wish I could have taken all of them home."