Elena Fomin and Josie Anton’s Urbanna Oyster Festival 2024 service project is about colon cancer. Elena and Josie aim to spread awareness about colon cancer and raise money to donate. The money they will raise will be donated to the American Cancer Society for colon cancer research.
This project is dear to Elena’s heart because two years ago her family was shocked to find out the news that her grandmother had stage four colon cancer and ended up having a colostomy bag; she was able to get it reversed one year later after becoming cancer-free and completing chemotherapy. Elena and her family were going through the fear of losing her grandmother over something that could have been prevented from getting to that extent just by going to get a colonoscopy check. This has inspired Elena to make this her project so Elena and Josie can help inform others around Middlesex County.
Elena and Josie made cake pops, cupcakes, and cookies for their bake sale. The Maryvale Farmers Market was very kind and let them set up there for their bake sale. They sold the cake pops for $1.50 and they were the first to sell out. Then they made three different types of cookies. The first one was sugar cookies with blue sugar on top. The cookies were sold for .50 cents.
The second one was a chocolate chip cookie. Then the last was an allergy-free chocolate chip cookie.
Lastly, Elena and Josie had made cupcakes, with vanilla, chocolate and strawberry flavors. They sold the cupcakes for $2 each and almost sold out. Altogether they made $360 from selling their baked goods and other donations.
Elena and Josie decided to have a paint night at the Deltaville firehouse on Aug. 18. To help represent them, they had a lady named Karen Wade who helped lead the group that had come to paint with them. Elena and Josie had painted a wooden crab together.
There were a total of three different paintings that the group wanted to paint and Karen was giving directions to everyone who had questions. One painting was a wooden crab that was worth $55 to paint and the other two were different pumpkin and sunset paintings worth $45. Elena and Josie made $100 altogether and were very excited to see everyone come and support them that night.
For the Deltaville 5K, Elena and Josie came out to support the runners and start their experience for this project. They had their poster up for others to read and were giving out strawberry lemonade. Elena and Josie were nervous at first, but then Elena and Josie started to get the hang of it. They began to stop being nervous and were excited to tell the community about their project. They had gained $85 in donations and this gave them motivation for the start of their project.
Elena is thrilled with how she did her project, because even though she didn’t have an event every week she knew that she had tried her best and to her, that is all that matters. If Elena could go back there are some things that she would have done differently, but she can’t say she isn’t happy with the way everything has turned out.
She is very grateful for the opportunities that she got within this project, and most importantly Elena is extremely grateful for the bond that she got to form with her spat Josie Anton. Elena stated that Josie was truly amazing and is sad that this is coming to an end, but not really. Elena will forever remember Josie and she will continue to keep in contact.
Elena Fomin is the daughter of Daniel Fomin and Amanda Powell; the granddaughter of Maya Fomin and Vlad Fomin, and Kirk Edwards and Melissa Edwards. She live in Deltaville, and goes to Middlesex High School. She enjoys cheering and going to the beach. She plans to go to college to become a Realtor after high school.
Josie Anton is the daughter of Brittany Anton; the granddaughter of Janet Anton and Lee, and Rick Bateman. She enjoys swimming and making people laugh. When she grows up, she wants to be a mother.
