Registration opens for annual Lemonade Day

Local youth are invited to test out their business skills with the second annual Lemonade Day on June 10.
“It gets the kids thinking about how businesses contribute to our world, how it contributes their lives,” said City Councilor Jennifer Massig who is the program’s City Champion.
Lemonade day is a free, experience based learning program designed to teach local youth what is required to start, own and operate a small business.
These lessons are taught by guiding participants through the process of designing and opening a lemonade stand.
Registration for Lemonade Day is done online at chestermere.lemonadeday.org and opened on April 3.
After a successful first year, only small changes have been made to this year’s event.
“We’re building on a good thing,” said Massig.
The Chestermere Chamber of Commerce has taken the lead in running Lemonade Day.
They have also changed the program so that the participants now have research and choose the location in the city that will work best for them to set up their lemonade stand.
“It feels like last year was very successful,” said Chestermere Chamber of Commerce President Frank Lavallee.
“There wasn’t much correction that needed to be done,” he said.
Once registered, youth can choose to work individually or in groups.
“It’s their business to make the choice,” said Massig
The youth are then given a work book and are assigned a mentor and a selection of dates to learn how to build a business.
The first mentor night of the program is on April 11.
Lavallee said that last year the kids participating Lemonade Day transitioned from being nervous as they started their projects to excited as they worked through the process and the actual Lemonade Day drew closer.
“I ended up going around to the lemonade stands and they were all excited,” he said.
The whole process tries to create a real-world business experience for kids, including paying rent and getting business licenses.
“I charged $5 to the kid,” said Lavallee, “and at the end of the day I ended up buying the rest of his lemonade for $5.”
Kids were also expected to pay back loans from parents and family that were used to build the lemonade stands.
The program is being targeted to kids in grades four to six but is open to all youth. Last year kids aged four to 15 years-old participated.
For more information or to register go to https://chestermere.lemonadeday.org or contact the Chestermere Chamber of Commerce at 403-770-9680.