Orange-ade

Yesterday was our girls' second time to run and work their Orange-ade Stand.  I did not advertise for it this time around.  The girls, but Ria especially, are so excited to have this little business with which they are striving to increase their savings and buy some more homeschool supplies.  It's such a gift and blessing to me to enjoy how very excited they are to do the work required to pull their Orange-ade Stand off!  They bicker (working on that, for sure!) about who gets to squeeze the oranges, who gets to pour the Orange-ade into the cups, who gets to collect the money, what else they might sell at their Stand... but they LOVE the work. 

Ria, as a result of her age and dexterity, mixes the drink and pours their product into cups for their customers thus far.  Kat is a mighty juicer!  Tea likes to hang out with Daddy when he's picking the oranges and LOVES to hand oranges out of the 5-gallon bucket up to me for cutting.  This is especially helpful when I'm wearing Jimmy... I'm not good at grasping round objects with my feet and people probably wouldn't prefer it anyway.  :)  Our girls are indefatigable at the jobs they enjoy.

The most wonderful aspect of their step into business ownership is all the lessons it's providing me opportunities to teach and enabling them to learn!  The money is also quite nice.  If the Stand were run by only one child, that child would be "making" more, per hour, than Daddy last week and just less than he makes this week.  Of course, they only work right around 2 hours each time the stand goes up (1 day per week) and there is a good bit of time spent at home preparing things... but still.  They are making some REALLY good money for how old they are!

In addition to Orange-ade, they sold cookies and break last week.  This week they sold only Orange-ade.  Last week Kat sold her painting for $0.10 and Ria sold her painting for $1.10.  This week Tea sold her painting for $5.00!!  What fun, right?

One of the lessons that seems to be sticking REALLY well with Ria is the necessity of dedicating the work to the Glory of God.  Today she said, after I reminded them that we needed to have our prayer for their Orange-ade Stand, "Yeah, we have to pray or we won't have as many sales."  And then after a few customers had come, "I knew Heavenly Father would send lots of people to buy our Orange-ade!"  And He did!

This week they had 7 vehicles stop.  The first 3 each bought two cups.  The first customer gave the girls a $5.00 tip!  They received another $4.50 tip a little later.  One lady stopped (but only in a drive-by sort of way) to give the girls a 1 dollar bill.  She didn't want any drink, she just wanted to contribute to their efforts!  Their last customer stopped as I was packing everything away.  We were happy to serve them (Ria had been pleading with me to allow her to keep her Stand up a while longer).  They bought 3 cups ($0.50 each) and paid for those and gave the girls $4 tip!  So, obviously, the Lord is blessing them beyond measure for their efforts to shine His Light through their business.  It's just wonderful to hear them request, "Do you think we could put our Stand up on Thursday next week so we don't have to wait ALL THE WAY til Friday to do it again?"  ^_^  And last week Kat kept trying to convince me that we could put the stand up the next day, "or what about the next," and so on.  :)

Last week they had, I think, 5 vehicles (4 customers in 1, and a couple customers in another) stop to make purchases.  They also had 3 walk-up customers.  2 of those each bought multiple cups of Orange-ade.  One customer last week bought 1 cup and gave them a $4.50 tip!  Last week we put the Stand up near homes and visible to people in their homes.  This week we were in a more deserted part of that same street.

I choose our locations for shade and enough room to park the van.  Our street is not busy enough to provide many customers.  The effort to pack everything necessary and set up away from home is really worth it to me because my girls are having SUCH success!  If they did this same thing in front of our house they MIGHT make a fraction of the gross they've made these two weeks.  While their excitement to pay tithing would be the same, I'm sure... I don't think the overall drive to continue would be quite as great.

An experience I have truly loved that is a result of this business is Ria and Kat's TREMENDOUS excitement about paying tithing.  Honestly, I think they are more excited to work to earn money so that they CAN pay tithing than anything else!  It's like the addition to their savings accounts and purchase of supplies for homeschool is secondary to their joy and excitement about paying tithing.  Ria was radiant this past Sunday when she went off to hand her tithing envelope to one of the Counselors in the Bishopric!  What a pleasure!

There are SO many lessons to teach and to be learned.  So many opportunities!  I think that if all we did during this summer was the Orange-ade Stand once a week, it would be an AWESOMELY productive couple months for homeschool!  Of course we will continue to do the regular book studies as well!  But this is just such a wonderful addition to their home education!  I'm grateful that I felt the nudges of the Spirit to enable our girls to pursue this business.  Ria's been asking to do it since she was 4 years old.  It took me 3 years to DO it... but perhaps those 3 years waiting are part of the reason she LOVES it as much as she does.  :)

Are you doing anything to enable your children (especially young ones) to earn their own money?  Is it worth all your efforts on their behalf?