SQUEEZING TO HELP OTHERS
Back left are Melissa Abare and Lori Wencl. Campers for the week around the table included Jacey Herron, Paisley Harkema, Griffin Harkema, Evie Vincelli, Truett Lammers, Ollie Brittain, Ollie Bien, Finn Bien, Reagen Everhard and Norah Everhard. Submitted photo
A group of young Owatonna entrepreneurs put the skills they learned in a weeklong summer camp to good use earlier this summer as they planned, organized and held a lemonade stand sale that raised over nearly $800 for community organizations.
The camp was one of a series of weeklong events planned for the summer by Melissa Abare, who has a daycare for preschool ages during the school year. As her charges aged out of the day care and moved into elementary and even middle school, she kept in touch with many of them and decided to come up with things they could do during summer vacation.
One of those activities was the Young Entrepreneurs Sale. The kids spent the beginning of the week learning about business basics and decided that they wanted to have a lemonade stand. When Friday, the last day of the camp came, “they manned their stations, greeted customers, answered questions, poured a zillion glasses of lemonade, visited with family/friends/neighbors/community members, accepted donations and shared our mission and sold their hearts out,” according to Abare.
As the week of planning went on it expanded beyond simply a lemonade stand with people donating other items to sell primarily kids toys and puzzles.
When the six-hour sale was over, from lemonade sold and the donations, the kids had raised $770.05.
The money, Abare said, was split between Community Pathways and Laundry Love in Owatonna and the Furball Cat Sanctuary in Faribault. Laundry Love, she said, is a group that helps low-income families with quarters for doing their laundry at laundromats.
Abara said she “was blown away” by the success of the event. The kids involved, she said, ranged in age from first to eighth grade and they all worked well together.
Abare said she first started day care in 2010 and then took a five-year break after Covid and recently got re-licensed.
She has hosted several other camps during the summer, she said, including field trips, a Junior Explorers Week at different local parks, crafts and creative writing.
Those who participated in the entrepreneur’s week immediately began talking about what they could do next summer.
The majority of the kids participating, she said, were those who had been in her preschool while one was a neighbor’s child.