Urbanna Oyster Festival Queen contestant Lorelei Cooke and her Little Miss Spat co-contestant Emersyn Soles dedicated their summer to raising awareness and funds for shelter animals in their community. Lorelei seized the opportunity to help their local shelter knowing how much Emersyn and herself love animals. Shelter animals continue to need support and adoption, and the shelter itself needs the money to take care of the animals.
Lorelei realized the best way to help shelter animals in her community was by supporting Middlesex Pet Friends For Life. Middlesex Pet Friends is a nonprofit organization run by a group of hardworking volunteers. They personally strive to take care of all the homeless animals in Middlesex, and work to find them permanent homes. They also support the Middlesex County Animal Shelter by procuring funds through public donations.
This gave Lorelei and Emersyn the perfect opportunity to help the organization plus their county animal shelter. After brainstorming, they decided to name their project…
“Paws Across Middlesex”
To start their project off, Lorelei and Emersyn set up a table at the Holly Point Market in Deltaville in order to start telling the community about their goals. Lorelei created a Facebook page to tell everyone about the event, and to keep the community aware of their future plans.
At their table, they displayed things such as a poster they made, dog scarves, dog treats, bracelets, and a donation jar with their project name on it in hopes that they could attract people to their table and tell them about their cause. Lorelei had the chance to talk to many friendly people and introduce “Paws Across Middlesex” to her community.
After a successful first event, they decided to keep the ball rolling and planned their next event at the Deltaville Ballpark. Lorelei and Emersyn had the opportunity to meet with Randy Blue and discuss having the event. Randy suggested the name “Paws in the Park,” so Lorelei advertised the night as such.
They decided that the event would allow people to bring their dogs to the baseball game for just one dollar, and while they were there they could donate to buy from their project table. Together, Lorelei and Emersyn spent July 10 baking homemade dog treats and dog ice cream from scratch to sell during their event.
In addition, Hurd’s Hardware donated a grill plus accessories to them, so they hosted a raffle as well. Lorelei and Emersyn sat at their table and greeted everyone who came to watch the game. While Lorelei talked about their project, Emersyn got the chance to meet a lot of dogs and even feed them treats.
The following day, they set up a table at Hurd’s Hardware to sell the remainder of their homemade dog treats. Many people didn’t bring their dogs the night before due to the intense heat, so Lorelei and Emersyn greeted people all morning and exchanged dog treats for donations.
Next, they conducted a bake sale at the Deltaville Market where they had cookies, brownies, pound cake, muffins, and rice crispy treats. Lorelei wanted to do a smaller bake sale in order to get a sense of what her community liked, that way she would be prepared to have a larger bake sale in the future. The girls exchanged their baked goods for donations like usual, and they were fortunate enough to get donations from people who didn’t even get anything. They handed out the remaining baked goods to the staff members at the market as a thank you for allowing them to be there.
Lorelei and Emersyn then went on to host two more bake sales. The first one was at the Holly Point Market and the second one was at the Deltaville community pool.
On July 26, Lorelei spent 11 hours baking in preparation for the market. The girls had a variety of cookies, brownies, cakes, fudge, turnovers, and more at their Holly Point Market bake sale. Since there were so many baked goods, they didn’t sell out originally.
Lorelei proceeded to get permission to host a follow up bake sale at their local pool in order to hopefully sell more goods. They stood out on the sidewalk and waved to every car that passed by, causing many people to turn around and come to their bake sale. Inevitably, there were still some goods left, so they took them to Hurd’s Hardware and put them on their shelf that others are allowed to take from.
For their final event, Lorelei and Emersyn wanted to have something that was enjoyable for both children and adults. They agreed on having a movie night where they would show “The Secret Life of Pets” and have spaghetti dinners available for takeout. Lorelei got in contact with the Deltaville Community Association (DCA) and they agreed to let her host the event at the DCA building on Aug. 2. She then gathered all the materials needed for the night over the span of a couple weeks – things like a popcorn machine, a snow cone machine, spaghetti ingredients, decorations, and more.
Many people volunteered to help Lorelei and Emersyn in any way they could, so they were very blessed with a lot of help that night. Lorelei was even able to get a sponsorship from Delta Marine Construction to help fund the night. Emersyn enjoyed watching the movie with her friends, while Lorelei spoke with many amazing people who came for the spaghetti dinner. It was a great night for everyone.
With each other and the community’s help, Lorelei and Emersyn raised $4,000 during their project to give to Middlesex Pet Friends, as well as many donations of pet supplies.
Thanks
Lorelei and Emersyn would like to give a personal thank you to the following people and businesses for their generous help, support, and donations throughout their project. They include Hurd’s Hardware, Delta Marine Construction, the Deltaville Market (IGA), Randy Blue, the Deltaville Ballpark, Katie and Chris McCue, Deltaville Community Association, Deltaville Maritime Museum, Genia Murfee, Cate Ogden, Barrett Worley, Katherine Campbell, Timothy Galford, Gail Butler, Carol Morrel, Chris Morrel, Pete Woods, Dana Blake, Charlie Lassiter, Alice Burnette, Joyce Voights, Sarah Ahnemann, Dontray Tull, Cheyenne Musick, Kylina Morning, Matthew Morris, Katelin Reiner, Hunter Inge, Alaina Taylor, Emersyn’s parents, and Lorelei’s parents, family friends, and cousins Madison and Abigail DeGraw. Lorelei wants to let everyone know that their help made all the difference, and they couldn’t have done it without such a generous and giving community.
What Lorelei enjoyed most about the competition was getting to know so many people in her community, and being able to spend time with her Little Miss Spat co-contestant, Emersyn. Lorelei and Emersyn had a blast doing their project together, as well as doing activities such as swimming, getting ice cream, making collages, going to the playground, and baking together. Getting to meet so many amazing people made Lorelei’s experience so rewarding, and she was so glad to have that opportunity. She is eternally grateful for the memories she made with Emersyn and her community.
Lorelei has been in the Middlesex High School marching, jazz, and pep bands since her junior year of high school. She is a member of the Key Club and Spanish Honor Society and does volunteer work for both. During her junior year she worked at Cafe by the Bay in Deltaville, and she is currently working at Big Oak Cafe in Urbanna.
Lorelei maintains above a 4.0 grade point average. She has achieved all A’s honor roll every nine weeks since she entered high school. She has earned college credits from dual enrollment classes through Rappahannock Community College. Lorelei plans to attend Mary Baldwin University to pursue a degree in psychology. Her long-term goal is to become a licensed therapist and work close to her hometown of Deltaville.
Lorelei is the daughter of Kristen DeGraw and Frank Cooke, and granddaughter of Patricia Figueroa, and granddaughter of the late Frank and Joanne Cooke.
Emersyn Soles, Lorelei’s Little Miss Spat co-contestant, is the daughter of Nicolette Neal and Troy Soles, granddaughter of Jimmy and Cindy Neal and the late Diane Neal, and granddaughter of Danny and Norma Soles. She is a first grade student at Middlesex Elementary School and enjoys riding her bike, swimming, gymnastics, spending time with friends and family, and playing games. When she grows up, Emersyn wants to be a veterinarian or a teacher.
