Our First Lemon"aid" Stand!

...and definitely not our last!  

Katelyn informed me before the summer began that there were two things (among many others) she wanted to do this summer: 1) Have a lemonade stand, 2) Give backpacks to kids at an orphanage in China. We are all about efficiency in our household, so we combined the two and raised money to buy the backpacks by doing a lemon"aid" stand!  

Sidenote: Katelyn and I recently ran across a  TV show where a family visited an orphanage in China and donated backpacks.  The particular orphanage to which we are donating the backpacks cares for special needs children and is the one at which I volunteered on a weekly basis when Dave and I lived in China. 

So we set up our lemonade stand on Saturday, June 15 from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. in front of her soon-to-be elementary school, McAuliffe Elementary, and we sold a cup of lemonade and two cookies for $1 (like a combo deal!).  We borrowed the lemonade stand from some neighbors down the street (who we found out go to our church!), and all the homeade cookies were donated by friends (close to 11 dozen total!).  Katelyn and I arrived in the front of the school a little before 10 a.m. and set up our lemonade stand.  At first, as she waved to people driving by, she became frustrated when they didn't stop or wave back.  We had a quick talk about how our job was to spread the joy of the Lord, and that as long as we were doing our part, God was in charge of who stopped and who drove by....and sure enough, our first customer stopped shortly after that.  I was almost brought to tears just seeing her excitement.  Among other noteworthy visitors we had were a policeman, a mailman, and a young woman who is leaving on July 4 to serve in China long-term.  Katelyn also received plenty of support and encouragement from her friends who stopped by.  There were people we had never met who just stopped by to donate money.  One family in particular from our church (who are preparing to serve as long-term missionaries in India) made a special $20 donation.  You'll have to read the story of where it came from.  The Lord gave us a beautiful day with cloud coverage, a big shade tree to stand under, a nice breeze, and plenty of traffic flow!  After all was said and done, we were able to collect $150 in donations to go toward buying backpacks for the children at the orphanage...which, wouldn't you know, is the exact amount that Katelyn estimated when I asked her, "How much money do you think we made today?" as we were packing up all our stuff to head back home.  God is good!  Our next step is to actually purchase the backpacks before sending them off with Dave on one of his two trips to China this summer (one in late-July and one in late-August) where he will connect with the orphanage's volunteer coordinator.  We are very much looking forward to that!

Another sidenote: In an effort to multiply the effects of the lemon"aid" stand fundraiser, and even more importantly, to give other kids an opportunity to participate in a meaningful service project “just their size,” we sent out an e-mail to Katelyn's friends and invited any children (and their parents!) who wanted to be a part of this cause to set up a lemonade stand in their own neighborhood to raise money for the backpacks.  We had one other family join our effort, and they had their lemonade stand at a park not far from where they live a few days before we had ours. They made $50 in an hour and a half!  Another family was inspired by the idea and used their lemonade stand to raise money for the wife's sister and her family who were affected by the tornadoes in Granbury, TX not long ago.  I love it when the Lord's plans come together...as they always do!

 

   Since one of our friends wasn't in town on the "cookie donation day," she made some cookie dough ahead of time and gave it to Katelyn to make, along with a really sweet note.

This picture series of Katelyn writing the lemonade signs is one of my favorites!  I wrote in pencil and she traced over it.

 

  All of the cookie donations! What a blessing!

  Katelyn and Anna working together to bag up the cookies (and not eat them...at least in this picture!)

We enjoyed seeing and visiting with friends who stopped by!

 

Daddy and Anna came to encourage us too (and get some lemonade and cookies, of course)!

Who better to do the final tabulation than Daddy? :)  At the end of our three hours at the lemonade stand, the Lord blessed us with $150 in donations!