Lemonade Day Aims to Teach 200,000 Pint-Sized Entrepreneurs


Lemonade Day for child entrepreneurs

This Sunday May 5, 2013 is National Lemonade Day in the United States. The day is designed to inspire and teach America’s youth how to become budding entrepreneurs.

Lemonade Day refers to a 14-step process that teaches kids how to create and operate that quintessential symbol of childhood entrepreneurship, the lemonade stand.  According to the Lemonade Day website, the program gives children an all-encompassing idea of what it’s like to run their own business, something children rarely have a chance to do in a real-life environment.

Lemonade Day is organized around events occurring on a designated day, at cities around the United States and also Canada.  Lemonade Day was started in 2007 by co-founders Michael and Lisa Holthouse and the first year featured one event in Houston.

This year, Lemonade Day expects to reach 50 cities in the U.S. and Canada and have more than 200,000 children participating.  Backers include Google for Entrepreneurs.

Some cities and states have even created their own days apart from but still affiliated with the national movement. In Louisiana, for example, Lemonade Day is May 4.  Lemonade Day in Indianapolis is May 18.

Children can register through the Lemonade Day website or local organizations to operate an official stand. “Adults are needed to participate as mentors, volunteers, investors, employees and customers. In addition, community support from schools, churches, businesses, and youth organizations is essential to the success of Lemonade Day,” Lemonade Day organizers say.

Once children register for Lemonade Day, they receive official information from the organization. A workbook guides children through the process of starting a new business, from setting goals, creating business plans, and formulating budgets … to finding investors and even giving back to their local communities.

Lemonade Day provides registered children with a Web address where they can promote their own lemonade stand and places it on locator maps. Of course, promoting their business on their own is also helpful and some children have found Twitter and the #LemonadeDay tag as one other way to reach potential customers.

For security reasons, Small Business Trends recommends that parents be involved with their children in using the Lemonade Day website. Locations and names of the children may be publicly disclosed – it’s up to you to choose what to disclose, but don’t leave those decisions to your child to make.

Image: Lemonadeday.org

1 Comment ▼

Anita Campbell Anita Campbell is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of Small Business Trends and has been following trends in small businesses since 2003. She is the owner of BizSugar, a social media site for small businesses.

One Reaction
  1. Daniel Adetunji

    Most of us have been made to believe that without working for an organization or businessman, we can never be successful in life.

    My English Professor once said, working with entrepreneurs can be a bad decision anyone can make. In fact, I can never allow any of my children to become a business owner because, the risk that comes with starting a business is much.

    I prefer working for the government than becoming an entrepreneur because, the government won’t owe or delay your salary but if you own a business, you might lose all in one day”.

    Well, as you know, I disagreed with his statement and proved myself right by challenging him in the class one day.

    How does that relate to this post?

    Our children shouldn’t be made to believe that they can’t be successful if they don;t work for the government. Rather, we should encourage our kids to become entrepreneurs, and I’m happy that this is what Lemonade is doing.

    Sorry for the long post; I had to say that because, I was just too inspired.

    Thanks for this post

    Daniel