The Lee Family: Sofia's First Lemonade Stand!

About weeks ago, we learned that the Frontiers of Flight Museum on Love Field is hosting a Gala on May 18th to honor Apollo 13 astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise and Sofia was beyond excited at the prospect of going! CK brought home a flier for Sofia from his flying club meeting and she happened to notice the information on the Gala. I looked on the museum's website and discovered that just to attend the Gala it costs $5,000 for a table of 10. That did not include meeting, talking to or taking any photos of Jim Lovell or Fred Haise! In order to meet them, the ticket's were $10,000 for a table, which worked out to $1,000 per ticket!! At the bottom, it stated that "individual tickets would be available for sale starting on May 1st." Sofia begged to go and said she would do anything to pay for her ticket.

So, before we got ahead of ourselves, I wrote an email to the museum to double check that individual tickets would be available on May 1st. I explained that ever since we visited NASA over Spring Breaks, Sofia has read the book "Apollo 13" and researched all she could on all of the various NASA space missions. For the writing portion of the STAAR test, one of the questions was "Who would you most like to meet and talk to?" and she wrote about Fred Haise! Jim Lovell and Fred Haise are Sofia's main heroes and she couldn't believe she might be able to see and possibly meet them. Mrs. Perez responded and said she would be happy to sell individual tickets to us for $250!! Immediately, Sofia said she would sell lemonade and do just about anything to raise the money! At first, we decided CK would take Sofia so we would spend $500 total. However, I was soon emailed again and told that the museum's focus is on encouraging the next generation to pursue science, math and space exploration. They asked if we would be interested in attending the VIP portion of the Gala, where Sofia would be able to meet and get her picture taken with her heroes! So, we decided to all go to the Gala, since it really would be a once in a lifetime event! Sofia is so super excited too.

Today after the girls got home from school, Sofia got busy making lemonade in the largest stock pot we own, as well as a plastic pitcher. A few days before, Sofia made her "Free Lemonade" sign as well as a sign explaining why she is hosting her lemonade stand. After we were ready, we loaded up the car with our lemonade, table, signs and cups and headed to the grocery store to buy ice. After we loaded up our ice chest with ice, we drove to the soccer practice fields and set up. We knew the practice fields are full of kids and parents nearly every night during the week, so we figured it would be a perfect place to set up. Setting up at the game fields over the weekend would be even better, but there is a concession stand so I knew we couldn't compete with them and not get into trouble.

Sofia set up her stand and called out to everyone that her lemonade was free, trying to get some business. It took a few minutes before anyone showed up, but soon she had a stead stream of visitors, especially after each of the practices ended. Sofia sold for just over an hour and made over $60! I couldn't believe it. One of the mom's gave $20 for two glasses of lemonade. I told her we'd get her change, and she said that she wanted to be sure to support Sofia and her efforts. It was so thoughtful! Besides selling lemonade and making money for her goal, she loved talking about the event and her heroes. It was really fun and turned out to be incredibly successful! Of course, she proclaimed that we should set up a lemonade stand every afternoon.

Sofia's lemonade sign