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Lisa Holthouse is our guest blogger today. Lisa maybe co-founder of Prepared 4 Life and Lemonade Day, but her greatest and most treasured pursuit is that of motherhood and wife! Her husband and co-founder, Michael is a successful businessman, investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist with whom she has a blended family of four beautiful children. This year their son caught the ‘entrepreneur bug.’ I asked Lisa to share his story.

As you might imagine, Lemonade Day is a much anticipated event in the home of the Holthouse family. It is a regular topic of conversation and has been for  many years. So it was no surprise a few weeks ago when our 6-year old son, Hudson, began showing interest in having his very own first stand.

Three weeks prior to Lemonade Day, Hudson, with the typical impatience of any child that age, could no longer wait to become a business owner. On Saturday morning he woke up begging to set up a stand. His dad, full of pride and contentment, was happy to oblige him. For the stand, he pulled out a small TV tray that seemed the perfect proportion for a 4-foot tall budding entrepreneur. He helped him mix a basic “Country Time” concoction while Hudson worked on painting his poster board for the 75 cents advertisement. They gathered the remaining necessary supplies of cups, ice and a cash-register box with spare change and they swiftly headed out to a shady street corner in the neighborhood.

The following weekend, Hudson could think of nothing other than hitting the streets again. When Saturday morning rolled around, he was ready to go. This time they increased Hudson’s workspace and pulled out the “limo” version of a stand that Dad had tucked away in the garage. He needed more counter area to house his supplies and he felt confident that being organized would help his sales. He planned to neatly arrange the cups next to the napkins, with the lemonade cooler close to the edge for easy access. On his way out the door, Hudson grabbed a bag of bubble gum. He was really thinking outside the box in a creative way. He wanted all customers to have a free piece of gum with their lemonade! It turned out that Hudson had another very successful day.

The 2nd weekend, Hudson upgraded his stand for a flashier business.

The third weekend that rolled by was Lemonade Day. For this special occasion he recruited some friends to help him tend to his stand. It was a bit chaotic on the front end, but the kids quickly assigned roles to each other so that the business would run as smoothly as possible. One child was responsible for scooping the ice, one for serving the lemonade, one for taking the payment and one for providing the lagniappe – the magical bubble gum that always drew great tips! They worked together for two hours and earned an astounding $160! We are certain that God smiled down on them to provide profits that grossed each child an easy round number of $40 per person! Fortunately, there was no room to argue over unfair or uneven divisions.

We reminded the kids that because Hudson was responsible for the upfront costs of the product and supplies, they should have to pay back 10% of their gross profits to cover them. So the two older girls (who were a little more advanced in their math skills) computed that they would each repay Hudson $4 for being the business owner.

Hudson's business grows and grows!

It was an amazing Lemonade Day for Hudson and his friends. Each of the kids stopped by the toy store to spend $10 of their total earnings. They later gave $10 to the charity of their choice, and the remainder of their profits went to savings for these 4 very happy & successful entrepreneurs!

We love Lemonade Day!