Lemonade for Sale

It began with a plan - a well thought-out and written plan, in fact, because that's how Tom rolls.

Let me know if you're interested in a copy of
lemonade stand "the plan" - Tom's happy to share!

After a couple of trips to Lowe's (no one ever makes just one trip to Lowe's, right?) to purchase materials and supplies, the sawing and hammering began. I honestly thought that work on the lemonade stand would commence that Sunday but then stall indefinitely. Instead, Tom and the kids - well, mostly just Tom - powered through and finished the entire building phase of the project by the end of the day.

The kids settled on yellow as the primary color for top, sides, and posts of the stand, and both liked my suggestion of chalkboard paint for the front of the stand. (It kind of looks like a Hawkeye lemonade stand, doesn't it? Despite my love for the Hawkeyes, I pushed the kids toward maroon instead of yellow, assuming that College Station-ites would prefer to purchase lemonade from an Aggie lemonade stand, but they wouldn't budge.) So a few days later, the kids and I visited Lowe's again, this time to pick out our paint and stock up on painting supplies. After one extremely hot morning painting the on the back patio, we called the stand finished. Then we tried out the chalkboards in preparation for Father's Day. 

One afternoon, shortly before we were scheduled to leave on our summer travels, I heard the kids discussing how difficult it was going to be for Tom and I to fit the lemonade stand into the back of our car. Learning that the stand wouldn't make the journey with us to Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin broke their little hearts, so I promised to help them set up another - albeit less elaborate - lemonade stand during our garage sale.

At first Will had "helpers". 

But the girls quickly moved on and left Will to man the stand by himself.

Will made a $12 profit that warm, July afternoon, and as his advertisement promised, he donated 50% of his proceeds to the American Red Cross.

Planning for, building, and painting the stand; making and selling the lemonade; and then following through on his commitment to donate a portion of the money he made were learning opportunities and memorable experiences for Will. I don't think he - or Tom - will forget "that summer we made a lemonade stand" anytime soon.