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Introducing…the Best Lemonade Stands in America
Meet the winners of our third-annual contest.
From detailed business plans and elaborately constructed designs, to neighbors uniting together behind a cause, this year's lemonade stand contest winners are an impressive bunch of kid-trepreneurs. Here, we share the stories behind their award-winning stands. Plus: Check out this slideshow of all the 2008 winnners, including our lemonade stand of the week honorees.
Grand Prize Winners: Hunter and Gunnar Greer, Ocean Isle Beach, N.C.
This summer, our grand prize winners, Hunter and Gunnar Greer, proved that they are entrepreneurs at heart. With a solid business plan, investors to cover start-up costs, and a playful lemonade stand design, the 11-year-old twin brothers were equipped for success.
The boys were inspired to start a lemonade stand after they were given an end-of-the-year school project to apply the concepts of running a business. "We wanted to do something different than all the other businesses around here and so we came up with the idea for a lemonade stand," Hunter says.
From start to finish, the plan for their "Lemon Sharks" lemonade stand was carefully conceived and executed. The boys incorporated their interest in sharks into the name of their stand, and drew up plans for a logo of a shark eating a lemon, which they carved out of wood with their father's help and displayed prominently on the front of the stand. Before they began building, though, they pitched their business idea to family members, who agreed to fund their start-up costs.
Because the boys are year-round residents of Ocean Isle Beach, a coastal town in North Carolina that is a popular family vacation spot, they designed their lemonade stand to look like a beach shack, in order to attract customers heading for the waves. "Almost all our customers were visitors to the beach," Hunter says.
The boys kept their stand open about four days a week, and throughout the summer they picked up some valuable business lessons. For one, they learned the importance of treating their customers well, Gunnar says, and because they were making their own money, they quickly learned the value of a dollar. "We learned not to be so greedy with our money," Gunnar says.
After weeks of hard work and dedication, the boys made a total of $956. In keeping with their shark-themed lemonade stand, they decided to donate 20 percent of their profits to their local museum's shark exhibit. And while they discovered that running a business isn't always easy, they also learned that it can be very rewarding. The best part about the experience was "having people compliment us a lot," Hunter says. "Everyone kept telling us how good the lemonade stand was."
Best Design Winners: Jordan and Jeremy Dake, Westlake, Calif.
For Jordan and Jeremy Dake, our best design winners from Westlake, Calif., the process of designing and building their lemonade stand was just as important as their success at selling lemonade. Their elaborate and eye-catching stand is marked by a large painted wood sign in the shape of a cloud with the name "J n' J's" on it. The design has special meaning to the boys, who are 11-year-old twins, because it was conceived by their grandfather who lives in Virginia.
In addition to the boys' desire to give back to their community with money from lemonade sales, the lemonade stand was also a way for them to spend time with their grandfather. Despite not being in the best of health, Jordan and Jeremy's grandfather traveled to Westlake, Calif. at the beginning of the summer to see-through the building phase of the project.
"My grandfather is a very good handy man and he built us this huge lemonade stand," Jordan says. The boys and their grandfather spent about a week building the stand, enlisting the help of friends and community organizations along the way. Home Depot and Dunn Edwards donated the wood and paint for the stand, and a local sign company printed a big banner that hung in the front of their display.
Most of the organizations that donated materials for the stand wanted to help out because the boys were raising money for the Starlight Children's Foundation to purchase an entertainment center for children in a local hospital. "Hopefully it will help get the kids' minds off their sickness," Jordan says. "Since we are kids, we wanted to help other kids have a happy life too."
In only two weekends of working the lemonade stand, the boys have made $2,731.07, more than halfway to their goal of $4,250 needed to purchase the entertainment center, and they plan to continue running the lemonade stand until the reach their goal. In order to help boost sales from outside their community, Jordan and Jeremy set up a website (www.firstgiving.com) with the help of the Starlight Foundation where visitors can read about the organization, and donate to the cause online. The site also tracks how much more money is needed to reach their goal.
Word has spread about Jordan and Jeremy, and they have been recognized by the superintendent of their school district for being model citizens. When the boys go back to school this week, they plan to tell their friends all about their summer running a lemonade stand and hopefully increase their customer base for the next time they're out selling. Jeremy especially enjoys knowing that their hard work has paid off. "People tell us this is the best lemonade stand they've ever seen," he says.
Best Story Winners: Emily Quigley, Valerie and Matthew Saunders, Kaysville, Utah
Emily Quigley and her neighbors, Valerie and Matthew Saunders, received an outpouring of support from their Kaysville, Utah, community when they opened a lemonade stand to honor siblings from each family who had battled cancer. The stand was named for Eliza, Valerie, and Matthew's three-year-old sister, who was going through treatment for liver cancer, and for Liz, Emily's older sister who conquered her battle with leukemia four years ago.
The three neighbors got together to make giant signs for the lemonade stand, which was built out of PVC pipes. The stand was constructed to be tall and wide to accommodate a lot people, and there was a shaded sitting area where customers could sit and enjoy their lemonade and snacks. Posters that talked about Eliza and Liz's diagnosis and treatment were displayed next to the stand and added a personal touch to the cause.
The weekend that the families ran the lemonade stand, hundreds of neighbors and community members turned out to show their support. Some brought baked goods, others made the lemonade, and some neighbors who were in a band got together to play music for the event. The local FedEx Kinko's donated fliers that were handed out during the weekend, and all of the kids from both families were able to be a part of it. Eliza, who was undergoing treatment at the time, was released from the hospital for a few hours to come to the lemonade stand. Having her little sister there was especially meaningful for 11-year-old Valerie. "She was really excited to be able to come to the lemonade stand," Valerie says. "Eliza got some money from her nurses and she was so excited to put it in the jar."
Emily, Valerie, and Matthew set a goal of $1,000, which they planned to donate to Alex's Lemonade Stand, an organization dedicated to raising money for childhood cancer. By the end of their lemonade stand weekend, they had far exceeded their goal, raising $5,400 in total. Emily, 11, says she loved seeing the generosity of people and everyone who wanted to help. "I'm just grateful that we could help this cause with the money we raised," she says. "I never imagined we could make so much."
