When is a lemonade stand more than a lemonade stand? When does it become something other than just a fun activity for kids on a neighborhood sidewalk?
Some enterprising third-graders are taking the lemonade stand to a whole new level, and getting some national attention at the same time.
It will be their second stand, inspired by a desire to help, and the pages of a book.
"Our lemonade stand came about when we were reading a book called 'The Lemonade War' in our third-grade class," the girls said. "In the book, they were having lemonade stands to raise as much money as they could in a week to donate to charity. We had the idea to do a lemonade stand to raise money for our school to purchase a water bottle refill station. If we raise more money then we can get other stuff for the school or they can just use it for paying the teacher the right salary."
A little water and some stirring is the easy part. The girls' teacher watched as these young ladies took charge of their learning.
"They met with the principal," Cheryl Fleming said. "They came up with the plan they came up with the best location of where it was going to be. I was just basically their cheerleader."
The first lemonade stand raised $400, which was great, but not quite enough to buy a filtered water bottle refilling station for their school, Mark Twain Elementary. It would give about 400 students and staff access to clean filtered water and help them cut down on using plastic water bottles.
That's why they're back, making more signs for another stand. And this time, they have help. The app Nextdoor, where they shared the details of the first stand, named their effort one of the top ten lemonade stands in the U.S., and it's matching up to $500 of the money they make.
"It’s really cool and amazing to see something as simple as a lemonade stand turn into something much greater," Jen Burke with Nextdoor said. "Especially when kids are at the helm of it. And so Nextdoor is all about giving back to the community encouraging others to do so. And so we want to do everything we can to not only support these amazing 10 stands that we are recognizing this year but encourage other kids across the country to use Nextdoor to spread the word about their lemonade stand but also use it as a way to give back to their community and get to know their neighbors."
The girls are confident they can reach their goal.
"I think we can do it since we know what more we need since last time," Jadyn Harris said.
"I feel like we're going to raise more money because they know it's going to be there," Kendall Sova said.
They can already imagine how they'll feel once the school has a water bottle refilling station.
"Really like relieved," Gabby Fuentes said. "That we can finally after all we did finally get there."
Using a summertime favorite to take learning and giving into their own hands.
