It was a beautiful day, 66 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I hadn't anticipated Ella being so able to help, but she filled up lemonade cups for three hours and added precisely four extra drops of "secret formula" (lemon juice from one of those little yellow squeezy plastic lemons) to each cup. They sold about 7 gallons of lemonade...I had to run in to the math department building to make additional lemonade three times. Good thing I also brought along a smaller extra keg.
In addition to the new "lemonade-yellow" outfit we got her at Target for the occasion, Madison also wore a "Madison Ross Class of 2021" name tag. That got a lot of notice. We did a lot of practicing of "When someone hands you money for a product you ALWAYS say 'Thank you' enthusiastically right then." Madison also decided to add "And have a nice day!" when people left.
The stand made $49.00 profit overall, after subtracting the $7.50 in supplies, which Madison fronted with her own money. You might think that translates into exactly 113 cups sold, but it doesn't...I am not sure how many people said "Keep the change!" but it was at least 15 people.
That's Madison calculating the profit, above. 60% of it ($29.40) went to the RIT Math Club, which left $19.60 for my kids. In turn, Madison split THAT 60-40 (ah, percentages! lots of math was done at this table!) leaving her with $11.64 and Ella with $7.76. "That's almost $4 per hour!" Madison said. "At this rate, I could be rich!"
Here is Madison with Kate, the Math Club rep (and Ella is blowing bubbles in the background):
The Math Club kids tried to ask me to let the girls take all of the profits ("We didn't do anything but sit here some of the time on a nice day!") but both I and David felt strongly that they should have the greater percentage, and Madison agreed with our reasoning. In the car on the way home, Madison and I had a discussion about Public Relations and why it's often more enticing for people to buy products as part of a fundraiser than just from their own needs, which in this case would be thirst (and, as Madison reminded me, because they would want to support cute little kids in their own business).
We also had a discussion of risk, in the context of why Madison should have the greater percentage of profit even though Ella worked for the same amount of time that she did. But as I pointed out, Madison assumed the risk for the endeavor...she fronted the money for the supplies, and if no one had bought lemonade, she'd be out the $7.50. So she deserves a higher percentage. (Right, Steve?)
"What are you going to buy with the money you're making?" the kids from the Math Club asked Madison. "Oh, I'm going to save it," she replied breezily. They were impressed. Turns out she's saving up for...a TV set for her room. HMMMMMM.
Anyway, they LOVED doing this. They would do it every week if they could. We're almost certainly going to do it in September. Big plans were discussed in the car on the way home. What if we sold both fresh-squeezed lemonade AND from a mix, so people could choose? Could we charge more? We'd have to charge more. Do you think people would pay $1 for the fresh-squeezed? Do you think we'd sell more of fresh-squeezed? Do you think we'd make a bigger profit with fresh-squeezed? How much are lemons at BJ's? Maybe we could sell cookies, too.
The only down side of the whole endeavor? When we got home, somehow Ella locked our new cash box with her fingernail, and we can't get it open. So it's sitting there with the girls' money in it, enticingly, on the kitchen table. The keys are locked inside.
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