November 20, 2025
On May 16, 2025, a tornado tore through neighborhoods just south of City Academy. Families lost homes and businesses were destroyed. While City Academy’s campus was fortunate to narrowly avoid the storm’s direct path, many of our neighbors were not.
For fourth grader Frankie Rask, the devastation hit close to home. On the day of the tornado, her mom, Anna, accidentally took a wrong turn on the way home from school and drove through one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods. Frankie looked out the car window and saw children standing on the remains of their home. “When we were in the gym, I prayed that the tornado would not hit our school,” Frankie told her mom. “But now it hit their home.” That moment sparked an idea to help.
The following weekend, Frankie and her cousins Kai and Liam set up a lemonade stand at her grandparents’ house in Oakville. They started on the driveway but quickly realized they needed to be creative to find more customers. “We took the lemonade in a wagon and went door to door,” Frankie explained. “We just rolled down the street delivering pink lemonade with ice.” Each neighbor who bought a cup also received a handwritten thank-you note.
By the end of the weekend, the kids had raised $86. It wasn’t a huge sum, but it was enough to make an impact. Frankie gave part of the money to a family who had lost their home and used the rest to buy tarps for families in need. With some help from the National Council for Jewish Women and the Missouri AFL-CIO, Frankie and her cousins were able to distribute 25-30 tarps to cover damaged roofs before more rain came in that night.
Frankie remembers the gratitude on people’s faces. “We gave someone a tarp and they almost cried,” she said. “Some people lost their homes, and now they have nowhere to live and it will take some money to rebuild.”
For Anna, watching her daughter take action filled her with pride. “I think what made me most proud is her empathy and selflessness,” Anna reflected. “She could have had a lemonade stand to raise money for herself to buy Robux [digital currency for the game Roblox ] or anything else a 9-year-old cares about, but she saw a need and came up with a plan to help in any way possible, big or small.”