By Alex Owens

When Sophia Pruden was 7, she loved spending time with her Aunt Amy.

“We spent a lot of time together,” Pruden said. “She would take me and her daughter, who was 2, to Chuck E. Cheese.”

Sadly, Amy McFadin died of leukemia that year at the age of 26.

Pruden said the family was devastated, as were the students and teachers of Grossmont High School, where she taught history.

“She was such a great person, but she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to feel sad. She would have wanted her life to be celebrated,” Pruden said. “But she wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to suffer.”

Pruden, now 14, took that to heart.

“The year following her passing I had a lemonade and cookie stand in front of my house and I raised about $900,” Pruden said.

Ever since then, she has sold cookies and lemonade in front of her house on Memorial Day weekend.

“My grandpa bakes cookies and I make the lemonade,” she said. “I found adding a little orange juice helps the sweetness, but you don’t taste the orange.”

Since Pruden started her annual fundraiser, she has raised an incredible $30,000, all of which is donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for research.

Pruden’s goal is to raise $10,000 at this year’s event, which will take place May 24 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 6821 Rolando Knolls Drive (near 70th Street).

“It was a challenge at first, because we don’t live on a busy street,” she said.

What the fundraiser might lack in drive-by traffic, it makes up for in spectacle. The street will be closed down during the fundraiser and it becomes a carnival of sorts, with a jumpy (or bounce house), face painting, as well as a raffle and silent auction table.

“La Mesita taco shop donates rolled tacos and we’ll have hot dogs,” Pruden said. “The woman who does the face painting used to live on the street. She’s a professional and she donates all her money to the fundraiser.”

In addition, there will be people from the National Marrow Donor Program on hand to help find people who can donate bone marrow to patients who need it.

The fundraiser may only be four hours, but Pruden, her parents and grandparents, have spent months preparing for it.

“We’ve done all the baking and made all the lemonade, which is in extra refrigerators belonging to friends and neighbors,” she said. “I’ve spent my spare time making dream catchers for everyone who donates more than $50.”

Organizing the event has impacted Pruden’s life almost as much as her Aunt Amy did.

Now a freshman at Patrick Henry High School, where her parents teach Advanced Placement classes, Pruden admits her work on the fundraiser has her thinking about where it might lead.

“I don’t know what I will major in college, but it has made me think about a doing something with speaking, maybe starting a cookie or lemonade business, or work for a non-profit,” she said.

Of course, she has to get through the fundraiser first.

“I get really stressed before this event, but I really want to find a cure,” Pruden admitted. “The hardest part isn’t making the cookies or lemonade, but getting my friends to remember to come.”

For more information, check out http://events.lls.org/pages/sd/sophiascookies or “Sophia’s Cookies For A Cure 2015” on Facebook.

—Alex Owens is a freelance contributor based in La Mesa.