Sylvan Lake’s first Lemonade Day was a great success on Aug. 12 seeing many community members travel out to visit and purchase lemonade from the various stands around the community.
During the event the 25-youth who participated were able to put their new knowledge and skills they learned to the test throughout the day, economic development officer Amanda Mercer said.
“Participating in Lemonade Day gave the youth real-life experience in planning, building and running their own business and inspired them to be entrepreneurs.”
Entrepreneurs are very important to communities, Mercer added.
“Entrepreneurship drives our local economy and sparking a passion for entrepreneurship in our kids will set them, and our community, up for future success.”
Seeing how the community came out to support the event and shared about the event was amazing, she said.
“So many people came out to support these kids and their lemonade stands. A big thanks to our Chamber of Commerce as well for providing children with an honorary chamber membership for the day. Community Futures Central Alberta also assisted with facilitating micro-loans for participants. And our local library staff also made a point of visiting each stand, providing youth with a free library card certificate which was really awesome.”
While the morning saw some uncertainty due to the weather forecast overall everyone involved is extremely happy with how the day went.
“Everyone did such a good job at keeping the energy really high and due to the poor weather forecast we also allowed kids to extend their lemonade stand business into Sunday. Five lemonade stands then came back out to take advantage of the extra day to sell off their remaining stock.”
While the kids who took part had to repay their investors and cover their expenses the rest of what they earned they got to keep for themselves.
“We encourage the children to spend some of their profit as a reward for their hard work, save some of their profit for a rainy day or to re-invest in their business, and share some of their profit with the community that supported them,” Mercer said.
While currently still in the process of review, the town is hoping to bring the event back again in future years.
@sarahbaker
sarah.baker@blackpress.ca
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