Sometimes your life moves so fast that you don’t take time out to enjoy certain tasks. For me, I walk. Almost everywhere. A couple years ago a drunk driver hit me while I was on a moped (a rather nice one by the way, good size, fast, not one of those little tiny ones, but fairly impressive in size. But I digress). After I learned how to walk again, I bought a brand new motorcycle. A couple near-misses later, and I sold it. I was scared. So now I walk. Which isn’t exactly horrible in LA, but not awesome either. Walking has become not only a triumph for me, but my transportation. No more drives up the coast, or zipping down to return movies late at night. I get caught up in having to be somewhere at a certain time, and what I’m going to have to carry with me. So today I decided to enjoy a little stroll through Studio City. 

I noticed a couple girls sitting in lawn chairs with a sign, and they were yelling ‘Lemonade Stand!!’ at passing cars, so I decided to head over and check it out. They had a nice array of actual homemade orange juice and lemonade, and some bags of popcorn. The girls were absolutely sweet and adorable and knew what they were doing. No struggle, no laziness- they were running it like a real stand. I tipped them an extra dollar for being so courteous, and asked if I could take a picture so I could tell people about it. They obliged and I gave them an extra dollar for the trouble. So that’s $3 for a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice, and 3 genuine smiles on a sunday afternoon.

It made me think back to the times I would walk around my old neighborhood on Saturday morning while everyone would be out garage-sale-ing, I would pull a Radio Flyer wagon around and sell whatever I could. Lemonade, cookies, popcorn, etc. Sometimes I would even have horribly drawn logos of Ghostbusters, Back To The Future, and even Saved By The Bell. And they would sell!

I had fun and it was great, but I look back at it now much more fondly than I ever thought I would. It gave me the confidence to walk up to people and ask if they’d be interested in purchasing various products, all items I believed in. The popcorn was even popped by me and my mother, and individually bagged and stapled at the top, and divided into Salted, Unsalted, and Sweet. So these were items with some attention given to detail. Not just me out reselling stuff you could get at the local 7-11. And it prepared me for being an adult more-so than I could ever imagine.

Today I’m selling handprinted shirts from an online store. They come wrapped in logo-printed paper, and delivered in logo-printed boxes. Sometimes people buy a lot, sometimes people buy a little. But each time, they have an emotional experience when they open one of our items. It’s not a shirt you’ll find on the floor of a major clothing store, half on the hangar, half off. Not the shirts you find left in the dressing room by the person before you. They come from me. I’ve touched every single one, and packed almost every single one up until recently when we’ve been lucky enough to have an intern helping us. And our current one is amazing enough we’ve dumped the whole shipping process in her lap so I can focus on designs, management, and overall company growth. We get emails and tweets and Facebook messages weekly about how much people love our stuff. And a lot of times people will contact us that they can’t afford a certain item and with they could. And sometimes they happen to get that item in the mail a few days later. 

I’ve been on both sides of the Lemonade Stand for this one. And to finally be standing on the other side again for once, felt amazing. And it gives me hope that there are parents out there teaching their children some pretty valuable lessons that will come in handy down the road.

If you ever pass one of these stands, please stop. Please support kids trying to have fun. Show them that there are people out there that enjoy good service, a nice smile, and the ability to help give a child faith in even their wildest dreams.