Lemonade Stand Yields Trip To Pool For Industrious Youngsters

BRISTOL, Va. – Hoping to make enough money for a trip to the pool, five Twin City girls opened up an old-fashioned lemonade stand Tuesday and saw the business take off.

It all started when 11-year-old Mauricea Carter and four of her friends were invited to a Tuesday night birthday party at Haynesfield Pool in Bristol, Tenn. She needed $9 to pay for pool passes for herself and her buddies, Tera Pounds, 14; Taylor Pounds, 9; Tori Pounds, 11; and Dani Sturgill, 10.

The girls’ first move was to go to their parents, Tera said.

“[Our mother] said that if we wanted to go to the pool, we’ll have to raise the money for ourselves,” she said.

Faced with a challenge, the girls put their heads together and came up with a simple idea.

“How about we have a lemonade stand down at the Rite-Aid,” Dani said, referring to the drug store at the busy corner of Euclid and Commonwealth avenues.

Having run lemonade and Kool-Aid stands in the past, Dani said it was easy for the girls to get together the necessary ingredients.

Tera contributed the business’ start-up investment when she took $2.82 from the family change jar and bought cups and other supplies.

The girls then spent the afternoon selling lemonade for 50 cents per cup. They also tried selling Sturgill’s bike for $20, a deal she hoped to sweeten by throwing in two free cups of lemonade.

By 2 p.m., the girls had tripled their initial investment. An hour later, the stand was gone, signaling that the girls pulled in the remaining money needed and spent the evening splashing each other in the pool.

| (276) 645-2518