Lemonade Day gives kids taste of entrepreneurship

About 15,000 of central Indiana’s youngest entrepreneurs are testing their business-ownership chops this weekend in tried-and-true fashion: setting up and running lemonade stands.

Part of the national Lemonade Day initiative, the Indianapolis effort has been championed by local inventor/entrepreneur Scott Jones and supported by a bevy of area businesses, including Jones’ tech firm ChaCha.

The idea behind Lemonade Day is to encourage kids to plan and run their own businesses in hopes they’ll catch the entrepreneurial bug early.

Participation has more than doubled since 2010, when central Indiana joined the 40-plus communities with formal programs. Last year, 10,000 area kids reported sales of $1.3 million—and donated more than $616,000 of that to charity.

“We have been amazed by the community’s response to Lemonade Day,” Jones said in a prepared statement. “Indianapolis-area kids are leading the way, and 10 to 20 years from now they will be innovators, transforming our city—and maybe the world—with their ideas and talents.”

Jones has called his early lemonade-stand experiences “transformative” and hopes others are similarly captivated by the thrill of building and running an enterprise of their own.

What was your first entrepreneurial endeavor and how did it change your life?