NEWS

Program makes entrepreneurs out of lemonade

By Queenie Wong;
Statesman Journal;

A national program aimed at teaching youth how to run a business through starting a lemonade stand has reached Salem this year.

The program, Lemonade Day, was launched in 2007 by Texas entrepreneur Michael Holthouse. It’s an idea that stemmed from Holthouse’s daughter, Lissa, who had to open a lemonade stand to earn enough money to purchase a pet turtle.

Salem business owner Chip Conrad first heard of the program from an email sent by a friend on the East Coast.

After organizing a local event in Salem last summer based on the reality television show “Shark Tank,” Conrad knew he wanted to do something to educate youth about entrepreneurship.

“Probably 10 to 20 minutes into researching (Lemonade Day), I had fallen in love with it,” he said.

Conrad, owner of Capitol City Theater and the executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Education & Development, was exposed to business as a kid although he never ran a lemonade stand. He remembers using a magnifying glass to burn drawings into wood and selling those crafts in a flea market with his uncle.

But it wasn’t until Conrad was a teenager that he realized he could be his own boss by opening a business.

“I think what lights my fire about this is I would have been so much more ahead in my development as an entrepreneur if I had a program like this in my city,” said Conrad, who grew up in Florida.

With the help of the Salem-Keizer Education Foundation, more than 80 students at the Salem-Keizer school district’s 11 middle schools recently started after-school clubs for Lemonade Day learning lessons such as budgeting and designing recipes.

Students interested in participating in the program do not need to be part of the after-school clubs.

“This was a way for us to talk about that lesson plan component and meet the needs of the kids who may not have a parent who has the time to help them do this,” said Krina Lemons, executive director of the Salem-Keizer Education Foundation.

On Thursday evening at the IKE Box, the Salem-Keizer community will get a first glimpse into the program and how the 14 principles that make up the curriculum work.

As part of the “taste-off” event, students will be giving out samples of the lemonade they are interested in selling, helping them to conduct market research and network with customers before officially opening their lemonade stand.

The event will also feature a video and remarks from a national Lemonade Day representative and Michael Davis, executive editor of the Statesman Journal — one of the sponsors of the program. Registration for the program will then be open online.

After learning about the curriculum, youth involved in the program will operate a lemonade stand on Lemonade Day, which for Salem is May 4.

Participants are encouraged to spend some of the profits they earn, save some though a bank account and donate a portion to a local nonprofit.

While students in more than 40 cities through the United States are participating in the program, Salem is the only city in the Pacific Northwest involved in Lemonade Day so far.

Come May 4, Conrad said he’s hoping that there will be 1,000 lemonade stands throughout the Salem-Keizer area.

“Lemonade Day is a celebration of what has taken them weeks and months to learn, kind of like graduation,” he said.

qwong@StatesmanJournal. com, (503) 399-6694 or on Twitter @QWongSJ

get involved

The “taste-off” event will be held at the IKE Box at 299 Cottage St. NE from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Learn more at http://salemkeizer. lemonadeday.org/