Lemonade Stands on Sanibel Island
LAST UPDATED: 29 July 2006

The long Summer days of my childhood in Baltimore were filled with hours of riding bikes, building forts and treehouses, and playing baseball in the backyard with my three brothers until we could barely see as the sun would set. Now that I am raising my 7-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter here on Sanibel Island, it is fun to see that as much as life changes, many things still remain the same.

This summer, my living room has been uninhabitable for days at a time strewn with blankets, pillows, and towels as elaborate forts are constructed. Outside, palm frond hidden hideouts, and crazy pool float clubhouses are designed. The children seem to multiply as the day progresses and so do the ideas of what to do next.

The latest fun in the sun project has been their lemonade stand. The children on my street, Eagle Run Drive have taken on quite an interesting summer-long project. Once enough kids gather to help, the process begins. An old puppet theatre (which Santa Claus built for my children many years ago) is loaded onto a skateboard and dragged to the end of our street at Donax. The kids quickly converge on the project with cups, trash cans, ice coolers, chairs, dogs, umbrellas, bikes, scooters, signs, sidewalk chalk, and last but not least some lemonade and a mom (for supervision and crowd control). Usually focused on earning some spending money, the kids shocked us when they suggested that all the lemonade stand proceeds should go to a charity. The children had a meeting of the minds and picked the Children’s Hospital at Health Park as their chosen charity. They have been logging their efforts in a notebook and want to continue the project until the Sanibel Cares Fundraising event. To date, they have raised $187.

If you ever see the clumsy lemonade stand near the bike path at Eagle Run and Donax, stop by and see the “Lemonade Kids” of Eagle Run Drive.

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