More than 700 young entrepreneurs learn business skills through lemonade

Hundreds of young Calgarians learned what it takes to run a business in the city's fourth annual Lemonade Day on Saturday. Tommy Osborne reports.

The first rule of business is often quoted as finding a need and fulfilling it. And on a hot summer day, what better way is there to fulfill the need of beating the heat than a nice, cool, glass of lemonade?

More than 700 young entrepreneurs across Calgary took part in the City’s fourth annual “Lemonade Day,” a day for children aged 5-13 to learn about what it takes to run a business through lemonade stands.

“It’s a really great way to teach their kids some of those skills that they don’t necessarily learn in school but are so important for life. Whether that is how to manage money, or how to work together with teammates to create a plan and put their business together,” said Lemonade Day’s city director Mona Csada.

Among the 700-plus lemonade stand owners was Davinia Crump, a six-year-old who hopes to use her profits to buy a piano. Like the other business owners, Davinia learned the business skills needed through the “My Lemonade Day” app, and she was very pleased with the amount of business she received.

“I’ve been going through a lot (of lemonade) and I’ve been seeing a lot of new people, some friends and some family. I have been selling with my dad a lot of cups of lemonade,” Davinia said.

Her father, Trafford Crump, says it’s been really exciting to see how motivated Davinia has been, adding he’s definitely noticed her greater understanding of business concepts like cost of goods versus expenses, managing supply and demand, and more.

“She had to set up a business plan which included doing some market research,” Trafford said. “We went to some neighbours and surveyed them on what they would want to drink, how much they would be willing to spend.

“And then we did some blind taste testing with some friends in the neighborhood over what kind of recipes were going to work,” he added. “And then she had to put together a pitch deck and find some seed investors to finance her stand here.”

Csada says the day also helps children develop other vital skills like confidence and organization, adding it’s often a day that leaves the hundreds of lemonade stand owners smiling and thinking of bigger plans, including Davinia.

“Everyone who has big dreams, maybe they can make them come true too,” Davinia said.

Csada explained Lemonade Day promotes a “save some, share some, spend some,” model with the money you earn.

On the “share some” aspect, Csada says it’s encouraged that children find a charity they would like to support and use a portion of their profits towards that.

Last year, each stand donated an average of $67 to a charity of their choice.

Csada adds Lemonade Day will be returning next year, and says some of the participants this year will likely be running their lemonade stands for more than just one day, so she hopes you support our community’s youngest business owners.