The Wolcott siblings, Phoebe, Lincoln and Jaxon, who recently ran a lemonade stand to help their teacher, Meagan Genco, who is fighting cancer. Submitted photo

ASHVILLE — Teachers have the ability to have an impact on the lives of their students, and for the Wolcott family, their teacher Meagan Genco, has had a great one. Now, the family is looking to give back to Genco as she continues her battle with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma for the second time.

Jaxon and Lincoln Wolcott both had Genco as their English Language Arts Teacher at Panama Central School, and their sister, Phoebe knew her from participating in chess club. Both boys expressed that they liked Genco doing fun things with her classes, including projects and watching movies.

“I like that she likes Harry Potter,” Jaxon Wolcott said. “Her room has a lot of Harry Potter and other things in it.”

Genco is also known for being very kind and understanding of her students.

“She understands my ADHD,” Lincoln Wolcott said. “She is very kind and we do a lot of cool projects and watch a lot of movies.”

Phoebe Wolcott also expressed that she found Genco to be nice, kind, helpful and funny.

The three siblings recently had a lemonade stand outside their house to raise money for Genco for a little while toward the end of July. The stand was to help Genco with medical bills and gas, as she has to travel back and forth for treatment in Buffalo. Jaxon Wolcott said that Genco is very helpful in school and he wanted to return the favor.

“It was originally something we wanted to do for fun, and then we talked about doing something with it to give back to the community,” their mother, Summer Wolcott, said. “The kids mentioned Ms. Genco and wanting to do something for someone they knew, so we did it to be able to give back to her.”

The original goal for the lemonade stand was to raise $500. While the kids have now taken down the stand, the overall amount they raised ended up surpassing this goal and reaching $681.80.

The kids expressed that they felt helping out their teacher was an important thing to do.

“She needs money for gas and food and bills and she is going back and forth to Buffalo for her chemo,” Phoebe Wolcott said. “She’s not working right now.”

Lincoln Wolcott said this was the first time he had heard about Genco having cancer and he wanted to help with her necessities. For Jaxon Wolcott, he had Genco as a teacher twice, with the first time being during the time she had Non-Hodgkins the first time.

“She helps me when I need it in school and I wanted to return the favor,” he said. “She said that I can come into her room whenever I am having a bad day and I can come in quietly and punch a pillow for a moment and then leave.”

Summer Wolcott sometimes is a substitute for Genco, so she has a relationship with her as well. She said Genco takes time out of her day to be there for her students.

“She really cares for her students,” Summer Wolcott said. “She cares if they are having a good or bad day. She takes time to not only be their teacher but also their friend.”

For Genco, the fact that the Wolcott family wanted to do something for her meant a lot.

“I am absolutely blown away at the fact that my students and school community went out of their way to show me such love and support through the lemonade stand,” Genco said. “It really melted my heart to see such compassion and initiative to try to help show me such love.”

The overall goal for Summer Wolcott with the lemonade stand was to teach her kids how to have empathy towards others. She added that even when it was slow they were still focused on working towards their goal.

“I wanted to teach them to be sensitive towards those around you,” she said. “You never know what someone is going through. You can help others in little ways, like a lemonade stand.”