Lemonade stands are teaching kids how to be entrepreneurs, reports Sarah D. Sparks for Ed Week.
Jemma Walker, 11, set up a mermaid-themed lemonade stand in front of an Indianpolis Kroger’s grocery.
She had scoped out potential spots for weeks, haggled over ingredient prices with her suppliers, and taste-tested recipes for a new “blue raspberry” lemonade made to match her undersea decor. . . . “You have to think about a lot of different things, like design and start-up costs … . There’s a lot of math involved.”
The nonprofit Lemonade Day! has developed a “curriculum to teach students from kindergarten to 8th grade business concepts like profit and expenses, advertising, and finding a good location,” writes Sparks. “In many cities, local banks and businesses provide small-scale “lemonade loans” to students who present business plans for the stands.”
I ran a summer lemonade stand with a friend for years. We used our profits, and money we made selling our newspaper, The Wednesday Report, to buy Christmas gifts and decorations for children stuck in the local hospital over the holidays.