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Lilly Lemieux has a passion for animals — especially domesticated ones. She has several of her own: one dog, two cats and two guinea pigs. She is considering eventually becoming a veterinarian.
In the meantime, though, the Searsport middle schooler wants to help animals stuck in shelters by raising money for a group that helps to place them with new owners.
And Lilly has found a creative way of doing so. After discovering a passion for crocheting small stuffed animals for her friends and family, she’s now selling the finished products and donating some of the proceeds to Maine Coast Animal Rescue, a group based in Northport.
While the 11-year-old makes all kinds of animals — including birds, frogs and reptiles — she’s best-known for her cats. She specializes in portraying them sitting on their paws, in a position that resembles loaves of bread and for which they are called “loaf cats.”
“I really did want to help the animals, because it’s sad to see them just out there shivering, and I just wanted to help and donate some money to them,” Lilly said.
Her fundraiser comes as animal rescue organizations across the midcoast and the rest of Maine have been under growing strain in recent years, in part due to a wave of people who adopted animals during the COVID-19 pandemic and later decided to surrender or abandon them. That has put animal shelters into the difficult position of having not enough space or resources for the ones they’re hosting, while also burdening animal control officers who haven’t been able to keep up with all the strays that are reported to them.
The crunch has forced members of the animal welfare community to respond in their own ways. Maine Coast Animal Rescue works to place homeless, stray and unwanted animals into foster or permanent homes, according to its website. That includes rehabilitating the animals that do come into its care.
In Searsport, Lilly is crocheting away, selling off the plush animals she makes through a business she now calls Lilly Flowers Crochet. In an interview, she said donating the proceeds to the rescue organization has allowed her to pair her creative interests with her fondness for animals.
“We’re kind of leaving it up to them,” said Lilly’s mother, Treena Lemieux, referring to Maine Coast Animal Rescue. “But at least we know that the proceeds will go to a good cause.”
Since teaching herself to crochet last fall, Lilly has built a growing customer base that includes classmates and even some of her teachers. She now fulfills one to two orders a week, turning around each one in about seven days. She charges $20 for each one, and is able to ship them if necessary.
As rewarding as the hobby has been, Lilly noted that sometimes it can be difficult to balance her business with her sixth-grade responsibilities.
For now, she plans to promote her business at local craft fairs in the seasons to come. With her early success, she has also considered the possibility of one day opening her own storefront
“I feel really happy and excited that people want to buy [my] stuff, and I’ll always say, after people place the orders, ‘Thank you for supporting me,’” Lemieux said. “It really makes me feel really happy.”
