Hands-on: From Lemons to Lemonade to Better Lives

On Lemonade Day, young entrepreneurs learn how to turn a proverbial phrase into profitable businesses. This special day harkens back to times when kids were taught by family members or other adults how to run a business firsthand.

And as everyone knows, the best way to learn about something is to do it yourself – with some adult supervision for good measure.

As the first-time title sponsor for this educational event, Imperial Sugar teamed up with Prepared 4 Life to teach kids valuable lessons about life, sharpen their entrepreneurial skills and apply real-world business logic to compete now – and later on.

John Sheptor, Imperial Sugar’s chief executive, believes it’s never too soon to learn these things because practical experience today gives kids that oh-so-important business edge in a global economy tomorrow.

“I sincerely believe our future economy is at risk if we are not teaching and demonstrating entrepreneurism to our youth as we have in previous generations,” says Sheptor.

“We have been able to reinvent our economy with new products and business models in each generation for more than a century, allowing the U.S. economy to continue as the largest economy in the world,” he says. “We did this via the family-owned business that provided jobs for family members and neighbors.”

Inspired by its positive impact on children’s lives, Imperial Sugar intends to continue sponsoring Lemonade Day because it helps fulfill a need to develop future business leaders in this hands-on manner.

On the first Sunday of May, thousands of kids set up stands to sell lemonade in their local communities – guided by family members and other caring adults. This annual event grounds kids in the business basics. It teaches them how to develop a business plan, establish a budget, find investors, serve customers and give back to the community.

The creator of Lemonade Day is Michael Holthouse, who also is co-founder of Prepared 4 Life, a non-profit organization providing after-school programs in seven, inner-city Houston middle schools.

For Lemonade Day 2009, Imperial Sugar supplied kids with an easy-to-follow Marketing 101 business booklet [link to sidebar], complete with the basics to create a great marketing plan. In addition, Imperial Sugar gave them sample packets of its Redi-Measure™ – pre-measured cups of white sugar – along with lemonade recipes and coupons for the company’s products.

The Sugar Land, Texas, company has more than 165 years in the sugar business – and goodness knows how many years with kids’ street-corner lemonade stands. At this year’s festivities, Sheptor remarked: “Lemonade Day helps provide the youth of our community with the tools they need to become successful in every aspect of their lives.”

This year, nearly 27,400 lemonade business stands were set up – more than twice the number last year. Within the next five years, the Lemonade Day experience is expected to expand to 100 cities and a million lemonade stands.

As one young entrepreneur put it: “Our parents took us to the bank to open a savings account, so we can be prepared for the future.”

Thanks to Lemonade Day, kids will be a little better prepared financially for the future – and more well versed in the kind of street-level entrepreneurial skills that future generations of Americans will need to compete in an ever-increasingly complex and integrated world.