Four local siblings were shocked to learn last year’s lemons produced sweet results.
When Drayvin, Mercedes, Deklun and Maydin Whitney were called to the front of the St. Mary’s School Lemonade Day assembly on Feb. 25, they had no idea they were about to receive an award for being national runners up.
Their drive-thru stand, Squeezed 4 Time Lemonade, during the inaugural Okotoks Lemonade Day in June 2015, was one of two runners up as the best Lemonade Day business worldwide during the inaugural Okotoks Lemonade Day held in June 2015.
“We did know we’d won for the best business in town because we had to submit our results and we received that award already,” said Drayvin. “But we didn’t know it went on to the national level, so this was a pretty big surprise.”
Lemonade Day was founded in Texas in 2007 to teach business and financial awareness to young people. Last year marked the first time Lemonade Day was held in Okotoks, with 72 stands around town on June 13 and an estimated 8,000 cups of lemonade were sold.
The Whitney family received a trophy and engraved plaque from the national Lemonade Day office in front of students and teachers in the school gym.
Drayvin, who now attends St. John Paul II Collegiate, was brought to the assembly under the guise that his mom wanted him to answer questions about his experience.
“They called us up to say we were the local winners, but then they announced this and I was blown away,” he said. “That came out of nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. We didn’t think we did that good at all.”
Prior to the announcement, Drayvin had taken the mic in front of the assembly to tell students from Grades 4 to 6 the merits of participating in Lemonade Day.
“You have a god time and get to learn how to run a business,” he told them. “You get to sell lemonade, of course, and selling lemonade is really easy and fun, so it’s a good way to make money doing something fun.”
He said working with his siblings was beneficial. As family members, they already had an idea of each one’s strengths and were able to give everyone jobs according to their skills.
Drayvin took charge of the business end of the stand, such as counting money, and sister Mercedes was in charge of marketing like creating signs and even doing sign-spinning routines throughout the day to attract people to their stand.
“Everyone has a different job and it can help bring you closer together as a family,” said Drayvin.
Mercedes said she didn’t see the award coming and was shocked their mom – Melissa Whitney, one of the Okotoks Lemonade Day co-ordinators – was able to keep it a surprise until the assembly.
She said hearing the applause of all of the students and teachers in the gym added something “pretty cool” to the announcement.
“It feels pretty good,” said Mercedes. “That was a super big surprise they pulled right out of nowhere.”
Ralph Tollens, city director for Okotoks Lemonade Day, said they were excited to have one of the local businesses receive national recognition during the first year the program ran in town.
“There was one winner for best business in the U.S. and a runner up in the U.S. and then one runner up here in Canada,” said Tollens. “That’s pretty special, having some of our kids reach that level in the first year.”
In 2015 about 100,000 kids participated in Lemonade Day worldwide in 75 cities, he said.
The winners for best business awards are chosen based both their financial and experiential results, he said. In addition to submitting their income and expenses, participants must also provide information about what they learned from Lemonade Day – what went well and what they would change.
“It’s really just such a cool program,because it’s all about teaching kids business,” said Tollens. “They’re truly life skills that aren’t really being taught anymore, anywhere.”
He said he appreciates the opportunity to educate local children about how operating a business works, including finding partnerships, attaining a business license, buying supplies and then selling their product.
Squeezed 4 Time Lemonade has already decided it will be open to the public again for this year’s Lemonade Day on June 11.
“Last year we kind of decided we’re going to do pretty much the same thing, so we might add some new things,” said Drayvin. “But we’re not going to tell you guys, you’re going to have to come out and find out for yourselves.”
