Kids battle in squeeze-off to send kids to camp

Kids in Kitchener faced off in a lemon juicing competition. Find out why.

A good-natured competition had students racing to juice lemons in hopes of sending kids to camp.

The Family and Children’s Services (FACS) Foundation held a Lemon Twist Competition to raise awareness for an upcoming community fundraiser.

Kids from across Waterloo Region were invited to see who could juice the most lemons in a race on Wednesday morning as the organization prepares for LemonAID Day on June 7.

Community members are invited to set up lemonade stands across the region on LemonAID Day to raise money to help kids have fun and feel safe this summer. The FACS Foundation said all funds raised at the lemonade stands will be used to send vulnerable kids who are at risk of child abuse and neglect to camp or to other programs through the summer.

“When you think about kids and summer you often think about – when I was a kid I set up a lemonade stand,” Jill Stoddart, Executive Director of the FACS Foundation, said. “It’s kind of quintessential to what kids do in the summertime.”

She said while some people have fond memories of their childhood summers, that isn’t always the case for children facing hardships.

“For a lot of kids in this region, they don’t have a lot of opportunities to go to camp, to be involved in activities and the summer can be a long time, sometimes unsupervised, sometimes in not healthy situations, without friends, without school. Camp gives kids an opportunity to meet new friends, learn, be supervised in a safe environment and to experience things that help them learn and grow.”

Anyone who wants to take part in the initiative can reach out to the FACS Foundation and they will supply a lemonade stand and other supplies, including cups and lemonade.

Stoddart said they will be offering supplies for up to 50 stands and there will be a map available for people who want to try to donate to as many participants as possible. Although the map is not ready yet, Stoddart said it will be upload online once it is complete.

At the end of the day, Stoddart said she hopes they can create some sweet memories.

“We work directly with Family and Children’s Services and workers who are working with families, who know that a child would benefit from a camp experience. [They] put in an application with us and then they get matched with a camp based on their need, whether it’s art or music or theatre or a cultural experience,” she explained.

The FCS Foundation has set a goal of $50,000 for LemonAID Day. They said it takes approximately $350 to send one kid to camp.