Grab the Bagel, now a staple at the Swampscott Farmers Market, will host a town-wide lemonade stand event during Porchfest on September 20.

“I think it can be great,” Dave Aldrich said.

On July 4, a catastrophic flash flood on the Guadalupe River swept through an all-girls camp in Hunt, Texas. The flood claimed the lives of 27 girls and counselors. Aldrich felt compelled to honor the girls who lost their lives at Camp Mystic, a private Christian summer camp.

One of the victims’ fathers has deep ties to the North Shore. He visited Swampscott, Nahant and Marblehead as recently as fall 2024. His grandmother spent her summers in Marblehead, and her uncle, Boston Globe writer Lucien Price, spent his summers in Swampscott and Nahant while authoring various books.

The idea took shape after Aldrich attended the funeral of his friend Alan Hassenfeld, the former CEO of Hasbro.

“Alan always said there was never a better time than the present to do something good,” Aldrich said. “It’s not about me. It’s about the families.”

Hassenfeld died four days after the flood in Texas. Inspired by Hassenfeld’s message, Aldrich contacted Camp Mystic to offer help with any fundraising efforts.

“When I ran a summer program for girls, one of the things I would say to the parents was if she has a great time with us with the curriculum, that’s great. If she gets it, that’s great. But the one thing I will promise you is that I will do everything in my power to keep her safe, so when the flooding in Texas killed those 27 girls, I thought to myself, ‘I can’t imagine,’” Aldrich said. 

The San Antonio Area Foundation created the Heaven’s 27 Fund to raise money that will be equally distributed to the families of each girl. The individual families will then use their portion of the donations for things such as providing scholarships, funding youth programs, supporting vulnerable groups, and assisting other outlets in honor of the girls.

The lemonade fundraiser will take place during Swampscott’s Porchfest on September 20. 100% of the sales will benefit the families of the girls lost in the flood at Mystic Camp. 

“My goal is that I want to be able to create some sort of thing so people can realize that they can do something like this,” Aldrich said. 

Children who’d like to participate can sign up by emailing Aldrich at grabthebagel@gmail.com. They will be assigned locations to sell their lemonade on September 20. 

Aldrich will also have bagel platters at each stand, and he will donate a grab the bagel vacuum bagel tower for one person to win at each location.

To sponsor a lemonade table, people can make a $25 contribution. Aldrich said there is one donor who already is supporting eight stands.

Aldrich launched Grab the Bagel two years ago, prior to which he ran the national non-profit Grab the Torch which taught leadership and philanthropy to high schoolers. 

What started with an email from his daughter saying that the bagel shop in Maine is closing and asking “What are we going to do for bagels next summer?,” Aldrich taught himself how to bake. He got approval to retrofit a former food space at Marblehead’s Jewish Community Center (JCC), which he said he is “unbelievably grateful to.”

Aldrich then launched a custom bagel bus and began selling at local markets. He sells out practically every week at the farmers markets in Swampscott and Marblehead. Aldrich will also be in the pop-up space between the Beacon Restaurant and Warwick Cinemas in Marblehead. 

In addition to the lemonade donation work, all of Alrich’s proceeds from Grab the Bagel help to fund local causes, such as Make-A-Wish projects for sick children to donations for the police and fire station and Temple Emanu-El’s Taste of the North Shore event.

The overall mission, Aldrich said, is to uplift the community. The bagel, he said, is simply the vessel to carry that mission forward.

“We’ve given to around 35 nonprofits and community organizations since starting,” Aldrich said. “Primarily in Swampscott.”

But beyond that, Aldrich can always be seen interacting with the children at the farmers markets, giving them freeze pops in Swampscott and just spreading cheer.

Aldrich recalled asking one child, “Tell me all the extraordinary things you’ve done today.” The boy froze, so Aldrich helped him walk through the day and “inevitably he might have cut his grandmother’s grass or gone to the market.” 

“So I would say if you take all of that and you kind of bundle it up, isn’t that extraordinary?” Aldrich said. “Then the next time I would see him. He would run up to me and just stare, waiting for the question.”

“I don’t just hand them a freeze pop. I ask them a question,” Aldrich said. “I want this connection that’s lost. Society has gone off the rails. I’m almost 70, and when we were growing up there was nothing more pleasant than someone who wasn’t a family member or friend who went out of his or her way to be kind. I never forgot that, and that’s how I’ve lived my whole life.”