Fashion Stories & Dirty Laundry

This Labor Day in the new neighborhood cul-de-sac where we now reside, a group of kids got together and pulled-off a surprisingly ‘successful’ lemonade sale.

After another mom and I helped the initial ‘investment’ of lemons, water, props, cups and other logistics, the 8-10 kids that regularly play outside came together and set-up, designed the posters, flushed out tasks and solutions to make the lemonade stand come to life.

As someone who has pulled off some complicated and good-sized fund-raising special events, I had to hold myself back from helping, ‘aka controlling’, the process too much. I decided to stand back and watch how this would play out. The observations and lessons watching this new little endeavor were fascinating.

First of all, let’s just say this — 8 of the boys on this street are between the ages of 7-11. I instantly saw this stereotypical principle: boys, like many men, are often dealing with “who is the Alpha male?” thing and who’s “the Boss”. I saw that right before my eyes amongst sticky cups and bug bites. I was pleasantly surprised that many of the boys were leaders and were willing to alternate between leading, delegating and following at certain times. As we all know, the best Leaders are the “Leader-Servant”.

Secondly, all the kids took tasks that probably pointed towards their natural gifts. An adorable more introverted boy had a pen and post-it notes at the table tallying numbers of people and taking care of the treasure chest. I instantly put him in charge of the money which included the sacred tip jar.

The more extroverted ones had no problem holding Lemonade posters on the corner of the street yelling “Lemonade for sale…50 cents!” and seemed comfortable waving and smiling down cars.

One of the girls, who also does dance or cheer, had no problem cheering on the corner and the friendly Girl Scout also seemed comfortable in sales and PR. No surprise there. One boy said blatantly, “I don’t want to do advertising.” Okay, no problem. 11 years old and knows his strengths. Good for him.

Many of the boys were ‘multi-taskers’ or what an events person calls ‘floaters’ which I found interesting. They’d ride their bikes or scooters back and forth from “lemonade base camp” to the end of the cul-de-sac checking on the posters, supplies and switching out the tasks. Some of the cars just pulled up and they created a ‘drive-through’ experience for some of the cars. Got money? “Will deliver lemonade to your air-conditioned car.”  (yes, adults were always present)

I found that very creative and actually very smart. After several genuine ‘thank you’s’ and smiles from these cute kids, one lady gave them a $20 tip. Not bad. 2 cups lemonade and a $20 tip. We should all be so fortunate.

After a few hours in high heat, it was time to close shop for the day. The biggest litmus test was yet to come. You guessed it – counting the money. Many of the boys wanted to count the money. They seemed to take over that task before the girls even showed interest and I watched as the girls didn’t even fight for the money task. Interesting again.

Here I interceded and had ONE boy count the money as we all sat around. We put the money in a plastic baggie and sealed it with a post-it note of the amount and date inside. The adults verified the amounts, of course.

Now…what to do with it?  Honestly, I thought they’d make about 10 bucks – max. Some admitted they thought we’d make close to nothing.  They surprised themselves with a total of $49.50. Wow.

Another interesting issue arose. Do they split it 10 ways and trot off to blow it on candy or an ice cream cone? OR do we do something useful with it and pool our resources? The other mom and I advocated the latter choice.

Ultimately, the kids opted to keep the money as a group and go get a new kick-ball, new chalk for sidewalks bases and basically buy some fun items for ALL the kids in the neighborhood to enjoy. Perhaps a “community fund” of sorts. We also plan to donate 20% to a local food bank or children’s charity.

This little neighborhood activity reminded me of that book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. Later in the evening, I thought about how 10 kids setting up and executing a neighborhood lemonade stand is truly full of wonderful observations and lessons.

Fiscal responsibility, delegating tasks, leadership, serving, getting along with co-workers and even the lesson of thanking your customer (e.g. customer service and gratitude). They also learned problem solving as resources and energy went low.

It revealed to me again that our human nature, that tendency for ‘power struggle’ is always alive and well. We struggle with that the rest of our lives and the transformation to “Leader-Servant” probably takes a lifetime and certainly not in 8 mere years.

I have a feeling they’ll want to do another lemonade stand.

And I have no problem being a ‘Shareholder’ again in this little entity filled with BIG lessons.