My kids are beyond excited about June’s Monthly Mission. We’re doing the famous, every-kid-tries-it-at-least-once Lemonade Stand! Lydia and Asa will actually be terrified when the time comes for them to talk to adults, pour lemonade and make change. But that’s part of the reason I want to do these missions–I want them to be uncomfortable and do hard things!
Now, the mission part of the lemonade stand is this: all the money we earn will help us buy a gift for someone in the World Vision catalog. We do this same thing at Christmas as a gift to Jesus. This time, however, the kids have decided to donate 10 fruit trees to a family in need. This is only $60 so I’m kind of hoping we raise more than that. I’ve already told the kids, that it might take them a whole month of lemonade stands to meet our goal. So, we’ll see what happens!
source: blog.worldvision.org
These fruit trees will provide food, of course. But when World Vision comes in, they don’t just drop off a fruit tree on someone’s front porch. They will teach and train the recipient in good farming techniques. Families recieving these fruit trees will not only be making food for their families, they will be able to sell it, make a good living and even train others in their community to do the same. You can read more about World Vision’s Food & Agricultural work around the world, it’s amazing!
I’ve seen this same thing happen in the Dominican Republic. We saw a whole group of women–mothers and grandmothers learn to plant and grow a garden that fed their families and made money for them, too. I wish you could have seen their pride and joy as they showed off (literal) fruit of their labors. It really felt like an oasis in that dusty, poor town we were visiting.
Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to set up a lemonade stand! (Or bottled water, or popsicles or homemade cookies, or whatever!) Flip through the World Vision website and choose a gift (I’d love for more of you to do fruit trees with us! Don’t you think it will be a big selling point? Lemonade for Fruit Trees!!) then set up and start selling!
Our super-fabulous guest blogger this month is Christie from My Walk With Eden. She’s on the Hello Mornings team with me and for some reason we never really connected online until recently and she is AMAZING. She has the same heart as me to raise her kids for the Lord and I’m inspired by her blog and life. This month, she and her kids set up a lemonade stand at a flea market and earned over $50 to give to the victims of the tornadoes in Okalhoma. Go check out her post and fall in love with her!
I’ll be updating our Lemonade Stand adventures here and on Facebook and Instagram, too. If you join us (pretty please!), please update on your social media networks with the hashtag #monthlymissions and link up your pics and stories on our main Monthly Mission page. (You can even get a cute button for your blog!)
Who’s in?!
We have fruit trees so we know first hand how great they are for feeding families. My oldest has been asking about having a lemonade stand recently. So this sounds perfect.
Yeah, my kids have been begging me to do a lemonade stand for weeks! I’m excited. 🙂
I’d love to hear about how yours goes!
a
Amanda,
We are SO IN! Our family had done lemonade (well actually drink stands…one time it was Special K breakfast shakes another time Kool-Aid…it’s whatever we have on hand for the time the mood strikes). Our oldest son is quite the Alex P Keaton if you know what I mean. He likes to earn some money! He also is a good little salesman. My kids are not afraid to talk to our neighbors! However, they have always raised money for their own use. They have hearts for God though, and what a splendid challenge for June! We will get on this today! I have not ever shown them the World Vision catalog (nor myself). So we will work on our kid business today so we can raise some more money for kids who need much more than the LEGOS we would purchase. 🙂 Thank you!
Yay! So excited you guys are joining us! And Alex P Keaton made me laugh out loud! Ha!
a
LOVE the idea of “lemonade for lemons”, great concept! Praying your stand brings in tons of thirsty customers! So excited we were able to “sell” alongside you guys this month!
I absolutely love this idea! My sister, cousin, and I are in the middle of a bloghop (called Much Ado about Missions) about being missions minded in the home. As a former MK, I want my children to understand the needs of the world, not only the spiritual needs but the physical needs as well. This is a very practical (and fun!) way to encourage children to be missions minded. I’m pinning this one to my Missions board so I can remember it. 🙂