ASHLAND — They do it to raise money — but really it’s just another way for the friends to bond through summer break.
Livi Cooke, 10; Esther Williams, 11, and Marina Kruger, 10 are neighbors. Next week, they’ll start fifth grade at Taft Intermediate School in Ashland. For years, the girls have put on an annual end-of-the-summer lemonade stand.
“Every five-year-old wants to do a lemonade stand,” Cooke said.
When they realized they like giving to others, they decided to donate the proceeds to local organizations and causes. Last year, they raised $1,100 for United Way. This year the money will go to Taft’s clothing closet.
So for weeks, the trio planned and prepped for their very own Mini Market.
They met three times a week to plan, to craft homemade stickers of drawn movie characters and logos. They braided bracelets and sketched signs. They blew up the balloons. Their brothers helped make “weird monster things” — one that customers drop money into and another directing traffic at the corner of Center Lane Drive and Dove Drive.
Sidebar for a slight clarification. The customers actually feed money to the Weird Monster Thing. One of the friends’ hands grabs the bill from inside.
“And then the other person puts in the cash register,” said Esther Williams.
Closer to Aug. 15, the friends baked rice crispy treats, cookies, banana and zucchini muffins and bought the powders to make two flavors of lemonade: pink and regular. There’s a new concoction this year — “orange-tastic.” (Insider tip: mix the regular with pink to make it.)
Neighbors running errands or walking their dogs stopped by to have a snack Thursday afternoon. Some waved and honked.
“What time you girls here till?” one neighbor asked.
“Probably 5:30 or 6,” Williams replied.
“Wow! Putting in the hours,” the neighbor said.
The girls, who all live within a couple hopscotches from each other, set up shop at 11 a.m. on Thursday. By 12:30 p.m., the register — a simple metallic drawer divider housed by a multi-colored stickered shoebox — was filled with twenties, tens, fives and a few ones.
“They really get into it,” said Livi’s dad, Casey. He said it’s been fun to witness the evolution of the friends’ enterprise. It started as a lemonade stand. It’s grown from there. The parents give input here and there. But it’s mostly the girls’ thing.
“And the parents just answer to their beck and call,” he said, laughing.
‘That’s super cool’
Ashland City Schools Superintendent Steve Paramore was pleasantly surprised when he learned about the girls’ efforts.
“That’s super cool,” he said. “Just super cool.”
He said the money they donate will help bolster the school’s clothing items kept in stock at the Taft building — jeans, socks, shoes, winter coats and hats. Also, feminine hygiene and menstrual products, which are now required by state law to be provided at all public schools housing sixth through twelfth grades.
“Not every kid comes to school with everything they need,” he said.
Students begin going back to school on Aug. 19 and 20.
“We’re blessed through all kinds of organizations and partner agencies with donations of this sort. But not necessarily ever from a lemonade stand,” he said, chuckling.
Paramore said the girls have set a high standard.
“Not only for their peers, but for the whole community at large. They know what it means to give back … and this will impact several years of kiddos coming through Taft,” the superintendent said.
