Lily's Boots: When life hands you lemons...

Photo from http://www.raisingceokids.com/

This week, my adventures were slightly less than adventurous, so I've decided make today's post about a near-future event and... lemons.

Did you know that tomorrow is Lemonade Day? Are you even aware of what Lemonade Day is all about? (I'm not grilling you. I just learned what it is myself yesterday when a colleague brought it up, but I thought it was interesting enough to share here.)


Photo from http://www.alexslemonade.org/

 Lemonade Day is a nation-wide event in which kids get their first taste of entrepreneurship by setting up lemonade stands. By running their own stands, kids learn about customer service, product, pricing, placement and promotion, supply and demand, economies of scale... Okay, I'm getting carried away. It's a great learning experience, I'll leave it at that.

Further research on lemonade stands brought me to Alex's Lemonade Stand, an organization that has raised over $40 million for Childhood Cancer Research since 2000 simply through the use of lemonade stands. It's truly amazing what you can do with lemons.

I love that the age-old concept of a lemonade stand is being promoted so heartily and for such great reasons. I also think that there's potential for the floral industry to pick up on this fantastic idea, which is why I'm writing about it here in Flower Talk.

Flowers can be used much in the same way as lemons, for both educational and philanthropic purposes. "National Flower Shop Day," anyone? (Okay, maybe we can work on the title.) Why not donate a few flowers to neighborhood kids, encourage them to set up their own flower stands, help them market their shop, and then donate the proceeds to a national charity? Sure, we'd be copying the Lemonade Day and Alex's Lemonade business models, but they work and, at risk of sounding cliché, it's for a good cause.  

Happy Lemonade Day to everyone in advance. Support your local kids and pick up a glass of that cool, refreshing drink tomorrow!  

If you have any other ideas about how to reach and teach kids with flowers, let me know in the Comments!

Links:

For more information on Lemonade Day, visit: http://www.lemonadeday.org/home

For the amazing story of Alex's Lemonade Stand, visit: http://www.alexslemonade.org/about

To learn about other initiatives for educating kids with flowers, visit: http://www.flowersforkids.org/ and http://www.kidsflowerfoundation.org/