Lemonade Day season 2017 has kicked off!  So far in the past few weeks, 37 cities have had their annual lemonade day!  From Austin, Los Angeles, to Washington D.C., Albuquerque, Honolulu and Northwest Arkansas, tens of thousands of young kid entrepreneurs have set a plan, worked their plan and achieved their dreams.

These amazing children have set their own personal goals, developed a business plan and ultimately started and run their own Lemonade Stand business—introducing them to the fundamentals of entrepreneurship.

Every year Lemonade Day season inspires many amazing stories.  It’s particularly fun to see how the kid entrepreneurs learn from their business experience, developing new strategies for next year.  It’s also amazing to witness kids’ improved grasp of financial literacy and business terminology.

Here are a few highlights so far from the 2017 season in the words of the kid entrepreneurs themselves.

A local basketball team helps fund their trip to the national tournament

“This is the 3rd year our basketball team, the Lake Houston Angels, has participated in Lemonade Day. Our Coach is a great mentor and encouraged us to create a stand and teach us the basic principals of running a business.  Eight of our teammates participated. Each day we would come up with ideas and discuss as a group. This year we decided to name our stand "D-UP" Lemonade. Our basketball team is VERY good at defense, and that is one of our slogans for our team cheer. We D-UP!

This Lemonade Day made a little over $2000 with both of our stand locations. One stand was at Los Cucos and one stand was at The Egg & I. Both restaurants were very accommodating and provided supplies to help us make our lemonade. Our basketball team is participating in a national tournament at the end of the summer and we are going to use our profits to help with our travel expenses.  Thank you Lemonade Day Houston for another opportunity for us to shine!”

A kid entrepreneur learns the value of advertising and social media

“I participated in Lemonade Day because I really enjoy running my own business and I love talk to new people and meeting people around my city. Opening up the lemonade stand was a great way to work on business skills for future projects. My stand was worked with my 2 sisters, my cousin, and my best friend. We set our stand up at the United on 82nd and Frankford and stayed from 12:30pm to 5pm.

Our slogan was ‘Save a Soda, Drink Mooore Lemonade’, like the Chick-fil-A campaign. My mom emailed flyers out to everyone in her office and hung fliers up around her work. We also hung fliers up around our neighborhood to advertise.

My family and friends of my family shared our booth information on social media.

Next year, I would like to have a bigger stand and I think it would be a great idea to serve food as well as the lemonade and baked goods we served this year. I plan on working small jobs around my neighborhood this summer in order to prepare to have a better stand for next year.”

Learning about profit and realistic goal setting

“Lemonade Day was a lot of fun. I saw a lot of kids last year selling Lemonade and decided to participate this year when our local news began to broadcast the approaching registration kick off day. We decided to set up ‘Little Lemonade Shop’ in front of our local grocery store (United Market Street).

Next year we will make some changes.  We sold our Lemonade for 50 cents and next year we will start our Lemonade at a dollar instead.  Also our stand began late in the afternoon so next year we will begin in the morning before everyone has had a chance to support all of the other stands.

Now that my siblings and I are entrepreneurs, we will not just a lot a simple plan of giving 10% to charity, 10% for tithes, 10% to savings, and the remainder designed for spending. We will actually have tangible realistic monetary goals now that we have a baseline of profits to work with. We would like to raise enough money to give the Scottish Rite children's hospital a BIG check not just in size, but the amount as well. “

Do you want to participate in next year’s Lemonade Day? Contact your local city to find out how your child can learn to be an entrepreneur, or learn how you can volunteer in your community.

About Lemonade Day

Lemonade Day is a non-profit dedicated to teaching every child across North America the business and financial skills that are the key ingredients of entrepreneurship. By learning these skills early in life, children will be better prepared to be successful, financially healthy adults. Through our fun, hands-on program Kids K-5 are empowered to start their very own business—a lemonade stand—and experience the feeling of earning real money, using 100% of their profit to spend, save and share based on their own goals.

Lemonade Day is in 62 cities throughout the United States. Over the past 10 years, we have served more than 1 million kids in our kid entrepreneur programs and in 2016 alone, 101,000 kids participated in Lemonade Day.

Visit LemonadeDay.org to learn how to participate in Lemonade Day in your city.