Lemonade Stand

While I was getting ready for the garage sale, I realized that it would be nice to have something for the kids (Emily especially) to do while I’m manning the sale. Rosemary’s kids sold cookies at their garage sale and I thought it would be fun for the kids to do something similar. I talked to Ann about it and we both decided we didn’t want to make cookies (or anything else for that matter). She suggested we use my lemonade stand and sell lemonade. I also decided the kids could sell freezer pops (or Otter pops depends on what part of the country you live). Emily was THRILLED with this idea. One thing you might not know about Emily is she is an entrepreneur and highly motivated by money.

My mom gave me the above lemonade stand last summer. She purchased it at Target when it was 75% off. She bought all they had and gave one to me and my sisters. My kids have a ball with it and beg to sell lemonade. We live on a cul-de-sac so I rarely let them do it for numerous reasons.

But the garage sale was a perfect chance to use it. As soon as Emily came home from school on Friday she immediately set it up. They had fun with it for awhile but eventually lost interest because we didn’t have a lot of people coming through later in the afternoon and it was a bit on the cool side. I think they also ate most of the freezer pops. At the end of Friday they had $2.60 which they immediately spent at Target on nail polish ($1) and a foam sword ($1).

Saturday was another story. Despite being 9:00 in the morning, many kind people were willing buy a small cup of lemonade for 5 cents or a freezer pop for 10 cents from a few eager kids. As the morning went by they were selling many cups of lemonade and lots of freezer pops. Most of the people were very generous and gave a quarter and didn’t expect change. Emily, Sam, Alyssa, and Anders greeted everyone who stopped by with a friendly, “Would you like to buy a cup of lemonade?” As they left Alyssa even told them to, “Come again!”

I was amazed that they stayed interested and profitable until about 1:00 pm when things started slowing down and they sold (or ate) all of the freezer pops and we ran out of lemonade.

In the end they made over $22.00. I was surprised by the amount of money they earned. It was kind of people to support the kids’ enthusiasm and buy a cup of lemonade. I think it was a good lesson for them as well. Emily even gave a few kids a free freezer pop just because she either knew them or she wanted to be nice.

Emily and Sam chose to use the money they earned to buy their bikes (that was our theme of the garage sale). One of the first things we will do after we move is bike shopping!

I wonder what our next entrepreneurial project will be.