For Several years now, twins Isabela and Patricio Orvananos were encouraged to participate in Lemonade Day, a national event to inspire entrepreneurship in young children. Little did mother Lorena know how that simple selling stand would impact her children.
“My children loved the actual Lemonade Day, but also wondered what happens the rest of the year to prepare children for leadership and entrepreneurship,” Lorena Orvananos said. “Clearly my children had powerful take-aways and tools to draw from for real-life situations”.
The Lemonade Day program has grounding effects on children. Ask a Lemonade Day entrepreneur and they will cite business truths like, “Location. Location. Location”, and business tools like knowing how to correctly count change back to a customer.
“The program taught my children that in business they can experience blockbuster days while some other days may be very challenging,” Lorena said.
The family realized that business can be like a game which sparked an idea. Not long afterwards the family had created a board game called Lemonade Stand, a game of wit, skill, temperance, patience and real life scenarios.
“The Lemonade Stand game is basically running a business,” Gaye Jackson said, City Director for Lemonade Day Houston. “It is a real-life scenario that can be played by the entire family. What these kids have created is awesome!”
Jackson was taken with the ingenuity of the twins and now they are the ambassadors of our Public Service Announcements recorded at Telemundo in both English and Spanish.
“Simple ideas can often be the most profound,” Jackson said. “Because our basic message is to teach young kids the power of entrepreneurship, kids are taking ownership of what they have learned and carry this knowledge forth in their life. For instance, Isabela and Patricio are both Mentors now in the Lemonade Program.”
“So the question is, how will one’s child benefit from such involvement in business and leadership? What kind of confidence will this type of training seed in a child’s imagination?” Jackson said. “All we can say is – Get In The Game!”
Lemonade Day is set for May 4 and 5 and registration is now open by going to www.Houston.Lemonadeday.org. Lemonade Day also shares many success stories on their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/lemonadedayhouston.
