By Kassandra Reyes
In May, be prepared to see an influx of lemonade stands around Bryan College Station. Come thirsty and bring cash to help out the young entrepreneurs of the community. B/CS is set to have the eighth annual Lemonade Day on Saturday, May 5, led by the new City Director Katy Dempsey.
Lemonade Day started in Houston in 2007 with a few cities across the country participating. In 2008, Lenae Scroggins, founder of the B/CS Lemonade Day, talked to the Houston founder and the rest is history. B/CS is a prime location for growth and innovation, especially with businesses, Scroggins says. As a community built on entrepreneurship, she thought the area had great potential to kick off this program. Nine years and a lot of hard work later, Scroggins is proud and excited about Lemonade Day’s future with Dempsey as the new city director.
Lemonade Day encourages kids (K-12) to participate in a free, community-wide initiative where they will learn how to start, run, and care for their own business through a lemonade stand. The program offers a backpack and workbook for the young entrepreneur to learn and prepare their lemonade business.
“The whole idea behind it was to get kids excited about the prospect of becoming entrepreneurs,” Dempsey says. “We’re trying to instill that entrepreneurial spirit in kids.”
Of course, the kids cannot learn how to start a business on their own, even with the provided tools. This is why Lemonade Day also offers mentors to help the kids work out a tangible and easy plan for their stand. Things to consider are location, budget, lemonade recipe, stand decorations, hours, pricing, and more. Community members can volunteer to be mentors. Often, the parents will not have the time to sit down and help their kid prepare for Lemonade Day, so this is when a mentor is really helpful. When the day does come, the young entrepreneur has a blast running their small business, simultaneously learning lessons that aren’t taught anywhere else.
“We do encourage [the kids] to think about spending some, saving some, and sharing some, but it’s completely up to them,” Scroggins says. “Spending some on themselves: they’ve worked very hard, they’ve earned it. Saving some, that’s really a part of the financial literacy component ... and then sharing some if they feel compelled to.”
A lot of kids will donate all of their profit to charities or people in need, although Lemonade Day does not ask them to. This is another way kids are taught how to be the next generation of responsible, productive citizens, Scroggins says.
Another thing the city director advises is continuation. Lemonade Day is not just a one year thing. Growing a business takes years of learning, changing, adapting, and re-adapting.
“You’re going to make mistakes every year,” Dempsey says. This is why Lemonade Day is a multi-year program, or needs to be considered one, which is something Dempsey hopes to instill over the years. It also never hurts to refresh your financial literacy, she advises.
This year, Dempsey initiated a partnership with United Way. The new city director says she expects this partnership to increase visibility and participation in Lemonade Day. A goal for this year is to have 2,000 entrepreneurs with a lemonade stand on Lemonade Day. In the long run, there is a push from Dempsey for yearly continuation among the young entrepreneurs.
“This is a community effort,” Scroggins says. “You’re either helping a kid sell lemonade or you’re out there buying a kid’s lemonade.” Either way, she says the members of the community have no excuse not to help.
Lemonade Day is held on Saturday, May 5, all over B/CS. Dempsey and Scroggins advise the community to have cash on hand that day and help a kid out. Whether the lemonade is ten cents or two dollars, citizens should participate in the entrepreneurial program in any way possible. For more information on how to get involved, visit www.lemonadedaybcs.com.
Dempsey says she has high hopes for the future. “The sky is the limit.”
