My son has an opportunity to have a lemonade stand. He’s done it before and done well, but I wonder if there is a more current version and what the rates are (in your experience)? What would make you stop and buy a cup?
In our case he wants to earn money for travel baseball. Do we advertise that fact, or just let him spit it out if/when he has customers?
Thanks for any advice. The day in question should be about 85° with no rain in sight..

I’m a sucker for the occasional lemonade stand that crops-up in / near my neighborhood. It occurs to me that I don’t even know what the kids are charging, as I like to surprise them with a $10 bill regardless.

Most recently, a young lady ran a stand (alongside her parents) and it was advertised on the neighborhood social media page that she was specifically fund-raising for her school sports efforts. My wife and I gave her a $20 for two cups of Crystal Light. It was a smooth drink on a summer’s day, but the surprise on the kid’s face and the genuine thank-you from her and her parents was the sweetest part.

Yeah, when I was doing the Scoutmaster duty, we always had a car wash with the Scouts on the sidewalk hawking the event and why they were raising funds. We never set a price but told the patrons that their donation were going to send the kids to camp. That also motivated the Scouts to do a great job on the car, and they always performed. Routinely got generous donations!

The real money is in dog walking, weed pulling, lawn mowing, and maybe mulch spreading but those require a continual commitment that travel ball may not allow.

What would catch my eye is some assurance of quality ingredients. I hate stands around here and won't stop anymore. Frequently it's just powdered mix with tap water.

Quality ingredients assured, I'd support a kid's good cause by paying a price reflecting 100% margins. If it's as good as the lemonade at CFA, I'd pay at least similar prices.

I would advertise the reason for the stand.
Don't over price. If reasonable and the consumer likes the reason for raising the money he will receive tips.
I am assuming it will be where there is pedestrian traffic.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
What would catch my eye is some assurance of quality ingredients. I hate stands around here and won't stop anymore. Frequently it's just powdered mix with tap water.

Quality ingredients assured, I'd support a kid's good cause by paying a price reflecting 100% margins. If it's as good as the lemonade at CFA, I'd pay at least similar prices.

Similarly, “fresh squeezed lemonade” would get me to stop. I like to support the kids, but I can’t drink that nasty powdered mix. And call me old fashioned, but I think kids should learn that lemonade is made by squeezing lemons.

Kids charge a $1 a cup here and it is ALWAYS watered down mix that tastes terrible.
How much I pay is honestly based upon the kids enthusiasm and their response to me talking with them. I usually give a couple bucks to each kid that is out there for effort.
If they are out there really working it the price goes up.

I may be a loaner on this but I have EXTREME difficulty giving money to TRAVEL sports! If kids are actually working for the money or it’s one of those coupon cards or books that is a little easier for me to give.
But travel sports are an extreme luxury and many parents (not all) use it as a vacation to sit around the pool, drink, and party then plaster it all over FB. I am not paying for that.
It pisses me off to no end when parents just flat ask for people to donate to travel ball.

I just had this conversation with some other parents in getting ready to play our first season of club soccer.
They mentioned fund raising and I said I’ll only encourage or go along with it if the kids are actually working or the person donating gets some sort of something for their money.

Young girl in our neighborhood has a lemonade stand. She charges $1 a red solo cup. I always overpay. Nice to see youngsters trying to work for their money.

This could be an opportunity to teach him about business.


Consider the cost of items used and the breakeven point.
Obviously, you want to add profit, so a range of 2 to 3 times the breakeven point is normal.

Most recipes go by volume, but sugar is sold per pound. Find how many cups per pound, then you can find the cost per cup of sugar.

Drinking cups are sold in larger quantities, like 50 or 100. Find the cost per cup.

After finding the costs to make one cup, then times that by 2.5.


You could go crazy and consider the cost of water and electricity used to freeze it for ice cubes. But, that might be a bit much for a younger person to grasp.

Best of luck & have fun

My two sons have done two of them this summer so far and have made out pretty well. They charge one dollar per cup.

Honestly, I think a lot of people are so shocked that kids are actually outside doing stuff and not just sitting inside playing video games and all that, they are very happy to see it and they often give way more than a dollar.

Location, location, location, as the old cliché says. You have to be in an area where people can easily see your sign which needs to be largely lettered and for people to stop and walk up.

We help them make it and we use real lemons, sugar, and water and it’s always really good.

Thanks for all the input, guys. I haven’t even asked his parents or my son if they want to do this, had to audition you guys first!

Black, I do get what you’re saying, but we need to teach him how to fundraise, too, if he wants to do some of these things. As you say, it gets ridiculously expensive. As a team, we have done a fundraiser. Yes, I was uncomfortable doing it, but I understood the purpose was to defray costs so they could play, and it was a very passive online fundraiser, very unlike ones that I had to do when I was a child, walking door-to-door. I did actually have my son walk over to the neighbors and present his pitch so that he understood the ask (she wanted us to buy Girl Scout cookies, so it was a fair trade in my mind).


At 11, he is too young to “officially” and reliably work without some supervision. At most, right now, he goes to his grandparents house and does light cleaning once every two weeks, and he comes out to our offices and helps stuff envelopes, clean, etc.. we are just starting with mowing this year. Household chores are just that: chores. No income there.

I’d rather have him earn money himself to use to pay for some of these events, for the concession stand he always races to after a game, for the gloves and extra sports equipment he wants. We got him the basics, and a few extras, of course.

This is an individual project I just came up with because he has an opportunity to hang out with a friend for an afternoon on what looks to be a hot day. And I suppose they could use the money for whatever they felt like, but, I feel as though lots of people ask “what are you going to do with the money“

I was thinking of presenting it to them in that fashion: that they could use the money (really for baseball OR hockey- they’ve both played on the same teams so far) because I know his buddy’s parents are like us- looking at their wallets and saying..whoa!

Konata, I will buy lemons- thank you for the input. I’m hoping to run the stand for two hours or so, and then let the boys play and swim in the lake, so I don’t want to go too overboard.

Trio, absolutely, and as mentioned, he has done a lemonade stand before: we went and purchased the ingredients, the cups, made the signs, calculated the costs and ended up charging just barely what would cover things.. people did end up donating, but I think we were probably only charging $.50. At that point, he was still a little young; he was so excited to pour out the lemonade for his customers that he kept forgetting to take the money.

It’s been a few years and I know we were undercharging then, so I just wanted to see what the current trends were. I’ve seen food and other drinks besides lemonade. Thanks again!

quote:

This could be an opportunity to teach him about business.

Also a good opportunity to teach him about overreaching government.

There are only 14 states in the US that do not require a permit to operate a lemonade stand.

https://www.rocketlawyer.com/b...-from-the-government

Get a bowl and make sure it has real lemons in it. Make real lemonade. It’s not hard and you will get better results.

Kudos for wanting to do this.

I went with using allrecipies.com lemonade recipe.

Also Walmart for pricing. Works out to $0.50 breakeven.
This was with 12oz cup with lid, straw, 3 ice cubes at 1oz each with 10 oz lemonade.

2.5 x $0.50 = $1.25 Roundup to $2.00 per cup to avoid coins.

To keep it easy, my pricing includes using Realemon juice.
You could add a slice of lemon for presentation.

Since it is a fundraiser, people generally don't mind paying a bit more.

I ran across this video yesterday and thought it might fit here. “Heartwarming” is the word used repeatedly in the news report, it fits.



Looks like you have to follow the link.

Our Granddaughter age 3, had a stand in the back yard on the golf course, wife and her sister helped, they priced the Lemonade at $.50 and sold bottled water at $1 per bottle.

Did about $40 in sales, one gentleman gave her a $20 for a cup of lemonade, couple of neighbors bought a few bottles of water.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

This could be an opportunity to teach him about business.

Also a good opportunity to teach him about overreaching government.

There are only 14 states in the US that do not require a permit to operate a lemonade stand.

https://www.rocketlawyer.com/b...-from-the-government

I’ll take the risk if we do it. The last time my son and I did it (and I will acknowledge it was a few years back), we had police officers, firemen, bus drivers all stop by…actually I think a police officer was our first customer, and he didn’t say boo about a permit. Just smiled and said thanks.

This isn’t a huge enterprise. This is just about a couple of boys trying to find something to do on a hot summer day, and learn a little about money and customer service. I’m not expecting to make more than $40 or $50, if that. I’ll keep you guys posted if it actually happens. I haven’t heard anything from the other family yet as to whether they’re ok with it.

There’s gotta be an exception for fundraising activities. I can’t imagine all the kids selling stuff, doing car washes, etc. to raise money for their team, school, church, club, etc. are required to get a license or permit.

quote:

There’s gotta be an exception for fundraising activities. I can’t imagine all the kids selling stuff, doing car washes, etc. to raise money for their team, school, church, club, etc. are required to get a license or permit.

I think in the case of the lemonade stands in particular, they're basing it on food prep/health code laws.

But out of curiosity (here in Missouri kids can run a lemonade stand without government permission), I went to take a look at the ordinances of the municipality closest to me. They use an "ordinance out of a box", where they purchase ordinances from an author, then modify them as needed.

quote:

SOLICITOR
A person who attempts to make personal contact with a resident at his/her residence without prior specific invitation or appointment from the resident for the primary purpose of:

1.
Attempting to obtain a donation to a particular patriotic, philanthropic, social service, welfare, benevolent, educational, civic, fraternal, charitable, political or religious purpose, even if incidental to such purpose there is the sale of some good or service; or

And doing that (also covers peddlers) requires a permit......

This is why government is out of control. Under that ordinance, a Girl Scout selling cookies door to door is illegal without a permit.