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"Kid-trepreneur" Claire Carroll Wins Lemonade Stand Design Award
Claire Carroll, age 11, of Cold Spring, was awarded first place in an online "Best Design" contest seeking the "Best Lemonade Stand in America". Claire will receive a $500 college savings bond and a backpack filled with school supplies.
Claire's winning design is what she calls her "Lemonade Tree," inspired by the fact that lemons grow on trees, and a song her father told her about, The Lemon Tree, recorded by Will Holt in the 1960s. The 8- foot stand is in the shape of a tree with yellow plastic leaves (made from lemon-lime soda bottles) hanging from its "branches." A hole in the trunk serves as a clever service window, and the entire operation is built on top of a wagon so it can be transported. According to Claire "I thought a big tree shaped stand would attract customers since lemons come from trees. My dad said I could only spend $5 plus stuff we had. I drew the tree on some plywood from a neighbor and cut it out with a jigsaw, then spray painted it. I love using power tools! To save money, I cut out the leaves from lemon-lime soda bottles. I glued clothes pins to the tree to hold the cups. It's built on our wagon so I can move it around. I spent $4.42 on paint and glue."
Apparently Claire's ingenuity struck a nerve with customers. In the two short days her stand was open for business she made $142. But Claire attributes her success to diversifying her products - selling both mint and raspberry lemonade, cupcakes, cookies and jokes for $.25 (good jokes were $.50).
To promote youth entrepreneurship, Inc.com, the national small-business and entrepreneurship website and online edition of Inc. magazine, searched the nation for promising "kid-trepreneurs" between the ages of 5 and 12 and asked them to submit digital photos of themselves and their lemonade stands along with a short essay describing what it's like to run a really small business, and their secret lemonade recipe. Essays asked each kidtrepreneur to tell Inc.com about their "business," including what motivated them to go into the lemonade trade, what they named their stands, what products they used in their secret recipe, and how much money they made in a single weekend. The contest ran June 26 through Aug. 31, 2007. Inc.com editors picked the final winners.
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