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Our Lemonade Stand – Part 1 of 2

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Have you ever been asked to donate or support a charitable cause only to realize you don’t have the resources available to do so? I have and so have my children. When this dilemma occurred recently, I loved my son’s resourceful solution to helping others.

At the beginning of April, our family received a letter from my son’s next-year’s teacher. This letter informed us that she would be leaving on a mission’s trip this summer to help other teachers. She asked for prayer and financial support for her trip. Upon hearing this news, our kind-hearted son asked if we could sell lemonade and cookies again to raise money for her trip. When I recovered from the emotion of the moment, I fully embraced this idea, and encouraged him with help and support. The support came as Using Time Wisely sponsored the lemonade stand.

Waiting for customers

THE PRELIMINARIES

With a plan of preparing lemonade and chocolate chip cookies, we needed a great place with lots of people and a date for our event. Having a jammed-packed schedule, I wasn’t sure when we could fit it in. I kept the idea in the back of my mind and proceeded with our planned activities. While checking my e-mail one afternoon in May, I discovered that our HOA Board had scheduled a community-wide garage sale on a Saturday morning. My immediate response was “perfect!”

Two years ago we had a community-wide garage sale. Our family sold lots of items as we decluttered our home, and my son had a lemonade stand. He did really well that morning making over $40 selling lemonade, tea, M&M cookies, and chocolate chip cookies. This year I was not quite that ambitious as we planned our lemonade stand.

THE INGREDIENTS

The next week, I found the Nestle’ Toll House refrigerated cookie dough on sale at Publix which I paired with coupons. I purchased 4 packages of the mini cookies which make 40 cookies each. Yeah, I saved myself money (sale with coupons), energy (stirring the batter), and time (mixing the ingredients for a homemade batch).

On my next trip to Aldi, I picked up 4 containers of the instant lemonade mix, lemons, and napkins.

Then the week of the event, I purchased the craft materials to make our signs. I then visited my neighbor, who allowed me to use her Cricut (pronounced: cricket). This neat machine looks like a small printer, and it cuts out the letters. Having a number of cartridges for her machine, my neighbor helped me choose a font, then graciously spent her time creating the letters for our signs. This was time well spent. I was able to visit with her and accomplish a task quickly (about 30 minutes) that would have taken at least 2 hours to cut out each letter with scissors.

After deciding on the lemonade stand, setting our home as the location, choosing the date of the sale, and purchasing the ingredients (supplied by Using Time Wisely), we were ready to prepare for our event. Come back next week for details of our preparations, event, and the results of our creative way to raise money for a teacher’s mission trip.

Our Lemonade Stand – Part 2 of 2

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Do you have a small business? If so, have you sponsored an event for advertising? I was thrilled with the opportunity to meet individuals who stopped by our garage sale. Our family was able to hand out about 70 business cards to spread the word about Using Time Wisely. The kids enjoyed taking turns helping: one serving the customer and the other handing out business cards. The partnership worked very well.

Continuing where we left off last week with the preliminaries established and the ingredients purchased, we were ready to prepare for our lemonade stand at our community garage sale sponsored by Using Time Wisely.

Ready to raise some money

THE PREPARATIONS

With all the ingredients purchased, I was ready to get started. First, I worked on the signage using rubber cement to adhere the letters to the poster board. When I decided to change the wording a little, I spent some time cutting out letters with scissors. We made one sign for the lemonade stand and one for the sponsor: Using Time Wisely. With two signs to make, I spent between 1-2 hours with interruptions completing the signs.

Lemonade Stand signage

When I baked the cookies, I made 24 cookies per batch. With 120 total cookies, it took about 6 batches at about 11 minutes each. While waiting for the cookies to bake, I was preparing the next batch and placing the finished cookies on the cooling racks. Making the cookies took about 1.25 hours.

Paul, my wonderful husband, helped make the lemonade while I gathered the cups, napkins, beverage container, and placed the cookies in two 9”x13” containers. When the preparations were completed and the kitchen cleaned, we had spent between 3 – 4 hours preparing for our event.

THE EXCITING EVENT

Generous Giver - full cups of lemonade

The next morning, my husband cut the lemons and prepared the beverage container. We setup in our driveway on top of our children’s play table. This table has a drawer where we kept the money earned. The picture embedded in this post is of my three children around their lemonade stand. Throughout the cool morning, we sold few drinks, but as the sun emerged from the clouds, our business picked up. Other families in our neighborhood had stands as well, so we had some competition this year. 🙂

Our son started off well, but he quickly got tired of asking, “Would you like lemonade or cookies?” Our daughter is a great salesperson. She would walk up and ask, “How many lemonades and cookies would you like?” She did not give them a chance to turn her down. She enjoyed filling up the cups, and I mean, filling up the cups. She would forget to release the dispenser, so she overfilled a few times.  With our daughter selling, our son advertised for the sponsor by handing out Using Time Wisely business cards. It was cute watching them participate and work together to raise money for this teacher.

By the end of the morning, Paul and I remained at the lemonade stand. The baby was taking her nap, and the older two were inside playing. They had enough selling and were ready to move on to playtime.

THE RESULTS

After cleaning up from the garage sale and eating lunch, we unloaded the money from their table. Having learned to count money this year, my son stacked the quarters and counted his earnings. He and his sister raised $25.01 for his teacher’s mission trip. Their sponsor agreed to match their earnings up to $25. The result: $50.01 hand-delivered to this appreciative teacher.

Counting the blessings

We were thrilled with our fundraiser’s results. Even with the cool morning and competition with our neighbors, we did well. For Paul and I, the bigger picture is that our children are learning how to give to others. When you don’t have the resources to give, you can be creative! What creative ways have you used to raise money for someone else?

Cookout Meal Options

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Photograph Credit: Flickr (D'Arcy Norman)

How are your summer events going? Are your cookouts successful? With our busy schedule, I have not yet entertained this summer. Our grill has gotten used a little to help keep the heat out of the kitchen.

Though I love a good hamburger and sometimes a hot dog, having them at every cookout gets to be too much for me. So, as I prepare for up-coming family gatherings, I am considering some other cookout options. Here is my current list of possibilities:

  1. Marinated grilled chicken, pasta salad, and corn on the cob
  2. London broil steak, baked potatoes, and green salad
  3. Shrimp, fettuccine alfredo, and vegetable tray
  4. BBQ chicken, potato salad, chips, and green beans
  5. Vegetable kabobs, cold cuts, and rolls

If your family enjoys seafood, then a fish fry theme, complete with hush puppies, could be another possibility. Since our family does not care for seafood, I will keep our possibilities fish-free. 🙂

By planning ahead, I can watch for sales on these items. Purchasing the ingredients on sale will save me money, energy, and time. If you have additional suggestions, please leave a comment.

Summer Family Picnic

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Photograph Credit: Flickr (Jeremy Noble)

Are your summer activities drawing you away from home during mealtime? Between sporting activities, outdoor concerts, zoo visits, and playground fun, our family can easily be away from home during a meal. To allow for these special events, I enjoy planning a summer family picnic.

My mom gave me a great picnic basket for my birthday a few years’ back. She added a liner, cloth napkins, napkin rings, plates, cups, and silverware. I have added paper plates, paper napkins, plastic bags, and sealable bags to help make clean up quick and easy. I keep my basket stocked and ready to be loaded into the car.

When the opportunity for a summer family picnic arises, I have my basket ready, and can concentrate on the food for my family. Though I sometimes make our picnic meals at home, I am not opposed to purchasing items to help use my time wisely. Here are some meal options I choose for these special occasions:

  1. Homemade chicken salad served on crescent rolls with chips and cantaloupe;
  2. Papa John’s pizza (using a coupon, of course);
  3. Publix turkey submarine sandwiches, chips, and fruit;
  4. Bucket of fried chicken, baked beans, chips, and fruit;

For me, getting the family together with all the gear and arriving on time keeps me more than busy. If I can place side items into our picnic basket and bring drinks, then purchasing the main dish helps me to use my time wisely. In addition to the options listed above, we also consider restaurants where kids’ meals are free, e.g. Firehouse Subs, Chick-Fil-A, etc.

I recently heard about Earth Fare’s, a local grocery store, Family Dinner Night that offers up to 6 free kids’ meals with the purchase of a $5 or more adult meal. This store has a reputation for offering very healthy meals. Though I have not visited the Thursday Family Dinner Nights, I definitely would consider this option.

By choosing a picnic dinner from these meal options, I am able to use my time wisely by focusing on arriving, parking, unloading, and enjoying my family. Having picnic menu options, either written down or thought through, keeps me organized and prepared for those quick plan changes.

What additional summer picnic menu options would you add to this list?

Recognize your Limitations

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After planning and hosting an event, I crash. The size of my crash is determined by how much energy I exerted to execute the plan. Since I pour 100% of myself into every task I undertake, I can quickly crash when the adrenaline ceases and the party or event is complete.

Having help with cleanup is not only a blessing, but a necessity for me. Thankfully, my husband Paul helps out. He can usually be found washing dishes after a Dinner with Friends event or sweeping the floor of the gym after a Sunday School Pizza Party and Gym Night.

Knowing that I need time to rest and re-energize after an event, I accept help that is offered. My children have learned that Mommy needs help, and they are willing to assist when asked to do so. On one such occasion, some friends came over to our house for a play date. All the kids played and had a great time. The older kids played down the hallway while the younger ones stayed in the living room playing with the kitchen and younger toys. During the play date, one of our infant guests enjoyed chewing on our plastic toys for the play kitchen. He was teething and forgot to keep the toys out of his mouth.

After our friends thanked us for a fun afternoon, they left. I needed a few minutes to unwind from the afternoon. My children had picked up a number of toys before I realized that I needed to clean all the kitchen items. Since my baby chews on the fruits and vegetables and silverware associated with our play kitchen and our friend had also put his mouth on them, I knew a good cleaning needed to be done. I was resting and came up with a great project for my two older children: wash the items and work together.

When I asked them to help with this project, they both were really excited. So, I prepared for their task:

  1. Gathered the supplies. One child retrieved the washing container while the other put all the kitchen items in the laundry basket. I then filled the container with warm soapy water.
  2. Prepared the floor. I setup their washing station with a towel on the hardwood floor.
  3. Gave specific instructions. Each child was to take a turn. On each turn, he or she was to pick one item, dip it in the soapy water, rub it clean, and place it on the towel.
  4. Demonstrated the process. As I explained the project, I washed the first item.
  5. Oversaw the progress. I allowed each of them to complete one turn.
  6. Allowed for execution. Once they each completed one turn correctly, I left them to work together.

When they finished this first part of the project – washing the items, I prepared for the finished product:

  1. Gathered the supplies. I rinsed out the container, refilled it with clean water, and gave them each a clean, dry dish towel.
  2. Prepared the table. Making sure they had plenty of room in which to work, I placed the water container in the middle and emptied the clean items from the towel into the water.
  3. Gave specific instructions. Each child was to choose an item, rinse it in the water, dry it with the towel, and place it away from the container of water.
  4. Demonstrated the process. I showed them how to rinse, dry, and place one.
  5. Oversaw the progress. After the demonstration, they each completed one item.
  6. Allowed for execution. I gave them space to complete the project.

When all items had been washed and dried, we all put the toys away. It was a win-win resolution at the end of an event. Besides practicing teamwork and sharing, my children giggled, laughed, splashed, and enjoyed working together. I was able to oversee the project without being directly involved, and we all enjoyed the afternoon.

Knowing my limitations and working through them has helped me to use my time wisely by preparing in advance to cope with the crash I experience at the end of an event. Do you experience a lack of energy after an event? If so, recognize your limitations and prepare in advance for clean-up help to give you time to re-energize.