Lemonade Day Austin Returns To Hays County, Greater Austin Area

By, Terra Rivers, Managing Editor

Lemonade Day Austin will take place this Saturday, May 11, in Hays County and the Greater Austin Area.

Lemonade Day is a free, fun, experiential learning program that teaches youth how to start, own and operate their own business—a lemonade stand.

The program began in 2007 in Houston, Texas, and has since grown from 2,700 kids to 1 million kids across North America. 

Morgan Briscoe, President of the West Austin Chamber of Commerce, said she believes the Austin branch of the national program began in 2009; last year, the West Austin Chamber of Commerce took over as the yearly presenters for the program. 

According to Brisco, she had been looking for entrepreneur programs the chamber could bring to the community when she came across Lemonade Day and inquired for more information. 

Brisco said Lemonade Day reached out to her and said they were looking for someone within Austin to be the presenter for the program alongside the program’s city-wide sponsor, HEB, and a “city champion,” a business professional who was passionate about the program.

“Community is always important to us,” Briscoe said. “I was looking for some programs that could help contribute to the community as well as just grow the scope of our chamber and the people we were making connections with and the programs we were doing.”

The Lemonade Day Austin serves Austin and its surrounding counties including Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Fayette, Hays, Lee, Milam, Travis and Williamson Counties providing resources and educational materials and opportunities to teach kids life skills as well as how to run their own business.

“There’s a lot of people that may not know you can go into business for yourself or to do something you’re passionate about as a career choice.” Brisco continued. “[The Lemonade Day Program] teaches not just entrepreneurship but also life and business skills, which are important regardless of what you go into as a career or field.”

Every child that registers receives access to lessons of Lemonade Day like creating budgets, setting profit-making goals, serving customers, repaying investors and giving back to the community. 

After completing the courses, kids can Brand Their Stands and register their stand locations with Lemonade Day Austin, so individuals interested in the program or just in need of a glass of lemonade know where to go.

Last year, 1440 kids participated with 105 lemonade stands around Austin, and this year, the organization is anticipating that over 2000 children will participate. 

Nearly 40,000 young Austin entrepreneurs have participated in this annual program since 2009, including nationwide success story, Mikaila Ulmer of Me & The Bees Lemonade.

Youths can register to participate in the program here.