Young friends’ bake sale to aid childhood cancer fund

GREENWICH — For a 12-year-old, Sophie Lenschow is an accomplished baker.

Though she was diagnosed with leukemia last year, Sophie has been keeping up her baking skills. Now, she and a group of friends have decided to raise money for a pediatric cancer care fund.

“She loves baking — breads, sweets and savory stuff, as well, like quiches” said her mother, Ursula Lenschow.

Sophie made a connection with a group of Yale Medical School students last year, sharing with them what it was like to be a young person with cancer. She discussed the idea of fundraising, and the medical students took her up on the offer.

Sophie and her friends will be running a bake sale Wednesday afternoon at E.S. Harkness Hall, a residence for medical students at 367 Cedar St. in New Haven. Proceeds will go to the The Tommy Fund for Childhood Cancer, which provides assistance to families coping with pediatric cancer.

“It’s to give back and help other children,” Ursula Lenschow said. “She feels like she’s doing something good, and it’s nice that the medical students are involved, everyone is working together.”

Besides baking, Sophie, a seventh-grader at Eastern Middle School, is an avid tennis player and fan. Her treatment at Yale-New Haven has been going well, her mother said: “She’s responding well.”

Ursula Lenschow has been active in fundraising for other charitable causes: In 2015, she and her daughters and some of their friends sold decorated rocks, raising more than $900 that they donated to Save the Children to help Syrian refugees. It appears her daughter has also picked up the instinct to help others in need.

Also assisting with the bake sale are Megan Shapiro,13; Lila Fulton, 13; Sienna Barlow, 10; Kayla Jaffe, 11; Alex Cahill, 11; and other Lenschow sisters, Anna, 11, and Carla, 8.