Recently, I passed by a local kids' lemonade stand and they hung up a sign that said proceeds help kids in Darfur. My window was rolled down. I heard a little girl plea, "It's for Darfur! Help those kids. And help us!" I plan on returning to that stand next weekend because I'm a sucker is plastered all over my forehead. When I was a kid, I had ambitious neighbors. The kind of kids that wanted to hold meetings and publish bicycle rules in the community, the kind of kids that rehearsed drama skits with Frankenstein and Eegore for our own little private audience, and the kind of kids who had craft night at each others houses under some mom's supervision and competed to make the best cookies. My neighbors were the kind who called their parents' names by their first names, which made me shudder. I could picture my mom and her backhand if I ever called her Suzy in public. I digress. So we did the whole lemonade thing and by the end of the day I think we made less than $20 total, and split 5 ways, we never profited considering all the expenses from the ingredients, the cups, and the signage. Kids today are even more ambitious! I found this contest hosted by INC.com (great mag BTW): http://www.inc.com/lemonade/2008/ The grand prize winner, LemonSharks Lemonade, even gave 20% of their profit to a local museum for their Shark program. Kudos to clever kids for taking their own time and ingenuity to raise some money. My favorite is the Sugar Queen (biased because she hails from California), who also retails her lemonade kit online. Great stuff! Support her! http://www.dipadova.com/sofiaslemonade/Lemonade.html Or the kids trying to save Darfur! Or any other kids in your area staying out of trouble, getting a head start on running a business, and trying to make some extra $.
