By DAVID TUMA
The Belton Journal
Harley Alvarez opened a Lemonade stand in front of Lindy Lu’s on the Square in Downtown Belton last week.
Previously, Harley participated in Lemonade Day Fort Cavazos Area in early May, the weekend of May 4-5.
The idea behind Lemonade Day is to help children develop local entrepreneurship and social skills.
“I am having fun selling my lemonade. I have been wanting to sell bracelets. You can make your lemonade and sell bracelets,” she said. “This is the first year I have done this. Dad helped me with the stand. Mom helped me with making the lemonade and running my business. I would like to be like Lindy Lu’s one day.”
At the stand, she took money with each purchase and calculated the change.
The donations from the lemonade sale went to Snip & Tip, a non-profit organization that helps cats.
“We had a blast putting this all together. She came up with the idea of the stand and I rolled with it. She is learning communication skills. This is good for her to learn she can do anything,” said her father, Benjamin Gomez.
“I am excited. I have known their family for a while. They asked if they could come and set up here. Harley is a sweet girl and has had a lot of fun. Both parents are here taking time away from work,” said Belinda Manzella, owner of Lindy Lu’s.
“We saw it online about Lemonade Day. She started making bracelets and we saw she could do both. She wanted to help cats. Anything with cats she is all over it. We found Snip & Tip to donate to,” said her mother, Gina Alvarez.
Lemonade Day teaches financial literacy, and the program encourages its young entrepreneurs to set a goal, make a plan and work the plan. The program also encourages the children to “share some”, “spend some” and “save some” of their profits.
Lemonade Day began back in 2007 and has since expanded to more than 84 communities in the U.S., Canada, Bermuda and South Africa. The program, which has been in the Killeen/Fort Cavazos area since 2010, teaches entrepreneurship to kids in grades Pre-K through 8th grade and focuses on goal setting, business planning, risk assessment, product development, marketing, customer service, financial management and charitable giving.
Altogether, there have been 32,188 youth entrepreneurs that have registered for the program since 2010, earning $181,438 in gross receipts for their small businesses.
Of that more than $181,000, a total of $50,698 has been donated to charities by the young entrepreneurs. Several of the Lemonade Day Fort Cavazos area entrepreneurs have received accolades at the national level.
