Lemonade Day sparks dozens of pop-up stands

On Saturday, pop-up lemonade stands appeared all over the central Kenai Peninsula, with well over 30 young entrepreneurs slinging fresh lemonade and an assortment of other sweet treats for Lemonade Day.

Stands were strewn across Kenai, Soldotna, Sterling and Nikiski, with each manned dutifully by a child hoping to entice passersby with a sweet-and-sour beverage.

In Soldotna, Rylee Smith was selling lemonade at Lemony Smith’s, outside Orange Poppy. Her lemonade came in three flavors — classic, watermelon and strawberry — and she sold other pastries that featured lemon as a key ingredient. Her uncle and father were excitedly waving arms and signs on the side of the Sterling Highway, drawing in potential customers.

Smith said she picked her flavors because “they just sounded really yummy.” As of around noon on Saturday, business had been good, and the watermelon flavor had thus far proved the most popular. She said her father had constructed her wooden lemonade stand, but they all painted it together.

Running a lemonade stand, she said, is “hard work.”

Only a couple of miles away, along Kalifornsky Beach Road, Remington’s Lemon Lovin Lemonade was operating outside of Save U More. The youth entrepreneur had a classic lemonade, jams, cupcakes and red velvet cookies.

Business had been pretty good, he said, though he had learned that running a business takes a lot of effort — assembling the stand and preparing its wares had taken “a whole week.” The effort would be worth it, though, as he was going to use his earnings on his upcoming birthday trip to California.

In Kenai, Maci Daniel was selling a cupcakes, cookies, brownies and lemonade in three flavors — “lemonade, raspberry lemonade, and then the fancy triple berry lemonade.” Her stand was outside Denali Family Dentistry and was, fittingly, called Denali Sweets.

It was easy to come up with ideas for the stand, she said. Brownies and cookies are easy favorites.

She said she had to do a lot of counting money and calculating change to run the stand, but had big intentions for her earnings — which are going toward a volleyball trip to Arizona.

Just across town, outside Kenai Catering, Brian Walker was running the aptly named Brian’s Lemonade. He had a variety of chocolate treats — no-bake cookies, choco-rice crispy treats and fudge — to complement his classic, homemade lemonade. He said he’d enjoyed making his money, and his dad said it’s been fun to see smiling faces coming by to celebrate Walker’s hard work.

For more information about Lemonade Day, find “Kenai Chamber of Commerce” or “Soldotna Chamber of Commerce” on Facebook.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.