Faith and Lemonade

by Timothy Paterson

and she stood proud and tall, as she handed the money to Reverend Jackson, the minister in charge of the mission. He hugged LeAnne and thanked her for the money. “I’m sure that Leon is looking down right now, with a big smile on his face,” he told her.

  The following Friday, LeAnne and her family filled twelve one-gallon jugs with lemonade. As soon as they opened the stand for business, several customers appeared. Some of them were repeat customers from the previous week, and others had heard about the stand, and what LeAnne was using the money for.

  After they had been selling the lemonade for about an hour, a teenage boy approached the stand and asked LeAnne the price of the lemonade. When she replied” Whatever you think it is worth”, the boy got a mischievous grin on his face and took a cup of lemonade. After he drank it, he proceeded to drink four more glasses of it. When he was finished, he handed LeAnne a nickel and said; “I think it was worth a penny per glass.” Then, the boy walked down the street laughing.

  By that time, there were several other customers in line and they were angry at what they saw. LeAnne just smiled and said; “I still have faith in God and people”. Each of the other customers in line threw in an extra dollar or two to make up for what the boy had drunk.

  LeAnne’s mother and grandparents smiled at her, feeling very proud of LeAnne because of her positive attitude. They had promised her that she would be in charge of the lemonade stand, and they kept their word, and did not interfere. That week, after expenses were deducted, she had a net profit of four hundred dollars to give to the mission.

  The next week, when LeAnne and her family arrived at the diner to set up the stand, they noticed that the boy from the previous week was back, but this time, he was not alone. There was a woman waiting with him. Once the stand was open for business, the woman and the boy walked up to LeAnne and after the woman nudged the boy a few times, he said; “I’m sorry that I stole the lemonade last week and only paid a nickel for it.” Then, after the woman nudged him again, he reluctantly took a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet and put it in the jar.

  The woman explained that she was the boy’s mother, and when they were at a local grocery store on Saturday, one of LeAnne’s customers told her what her son had done and that all of the profits went to charity. She told LeAnne that the boy would never steal from her again. Then, before she left, she bought a glass of lemonade and dropped another twenty-dollar bill in the jar.

  Every Friday afternoon, without fail, rain or shine, Leon’s Lemonade Stand was open for business. By the end of the summer, LeAnne and her family were filling up twenty-five one-gallon jugs with lemonade, and on some Fridays, the stand remained open until seven o’clock or later. There were several loyal customers who looked forward to Friday afternoons, so that they could buy lemonade, and to talk to LeAnne. Most of them paid five dollars or more for their lemonade. Each Saturday, LeAnne took the profits to the Helping Hands Mission. By the end of August, her weekly donations to the mission ranged between five hundred and two thousand dollars.

  On the first Friday in September, LeAnne and her grandmother spent all day baking chocolate chip cookies. They baked over twenty dozen cookies. When they set up the lemonade stand, LeAnne set out a large tray of cookies. When the customers tried to pay for the cookies, LeAnne told them that the cookies were free. “Today is Grandpa Leon’s birthday. He would have been eighty-eight years old today. Chocolate chip cookies were his favorite. These cookies are my way of saying thanks to my customers.”

  As the weather turned cooler, LeAnne’s grandmother asked her if she wanted to close the stand for the winter. LeAnne said that she wanted to keep it open year round, but she suggested that they ask their customers if they would still buy lemonade in the winter. By the end of the day, the results were unanimous. Everybody wanted the stand to be open every Friday of the year. As the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into years, the weekly visits to Leon’s Lemonade Stand became a part of life for most of LeAnne’s customers.

  When LeAnne turned ten years old, she told her parents and grandparents that she wanted to start attending public school. She told them that she wanted to make friends her own age, and she wanted to play sports, and start playing an instrument in the band.

  When her grandparents told her that they would miss seeing her each day, LeAnne had another surprise for everyone. “I can go to your house after school, and stay with you in the evenings, while my parents are taking college classes,” she said. When she saw the startled looks on her parents’ faces, LeAnne told them; “You gave up your college plans because of me, and now you will go back to college because of me. I insist.” LeAnne’s parents knew that it was futile to argue with her, because their daughter was more stubborn than they were. They agreed to start taking classes in the fall.

  In September, LeAnne started the sixth grade. She took mostly honors classes, since she was ahead of most of the students in her class because of her home schooling. She made friends easily, and joined the girls’ basketball team. She loved school. The one thing that remained the same was her lemonade stand, which she refused to give up.

  As the months progressed, the customers became more interested in LeAnne’s life. “How did you do on that math test?” one customer would ask. “How many points did you score in the basketball game?” another would ask. As the months turned into years, LeAnne grew up into a beautiful young lady. Her cheerful disposition was very contagious. Friday afternoon visits to Leon’s Lemonade Stand were the best part of the week for LeAnn’s customers. No matter how bad their week had been, LeAnne’s smiles and laughter always made them feel better.

  By the time LeAnne began high school, she was very popular among her peers. She was an honor student, as well as a star basketball player and the fastest runner in the school. However, no matter how busy she became, LeAnne never forgot about Leon and the lemonade stand. She was donating at least one thousand dollars per week to the Helping Hands Mission. By this time, the mission had expanded and was able to help more homeless, as well as start an after school program for underprivileged youth.

  Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, Leanne’s life began to get more complicated. As the challenges got harder, she held onto her faith even tighter. It started with her father losing his job. He was one year away from obtaining his college degree, and he lost his job as maintenance man. The building where he worked replaced him with a maintenance service. Jack started working odd jobs to help pay the bills. He told his family, it was only until he got another good paying job. However, after months of no job prospects, he became discouraged. He began to take out his frustration on Maggie. The tension between the two of them became so bad, that Jack moved out and he and Maggie separated.

  After her parents separated, LeAnne prayed more intensely every night, asking God to bring them back together. LeAnne discovered that if she could fill her life with other things, she would not dwell on her parent’s troubles. Therefore, she spent more time studying, and she ran longer and faster every day after school. Then running helped her to clear her head. As she ran, she prayed for peace. The harder she prayed, the faster she ran. She was a junior in high school and her coaches told her that she had a good chance of getting a basketball or track scholarship.

  On Friday afternoons, LeAnne focused only on her lemonade stand, and her customers, who by this time had become like a second family. On Saturdays, LeAnne began going to the Helping Hands Mission to volunteer her time. She helped to cook and serve meals to the homeless. Not only did it take her mind off her parents, but also it made her feel good inside to help those less fortunate than her.

  When summer came, LeAnne got a job in a legal aid office. Between that job, helping at the mission, and running her lemonade stand, LeAnne kept busy all summer. It was that summer when LeAnne decided what she wanted to do with her life. She decided to become a lawyer and defend those who
could not afford a lawyer.

  LeAnne’s faith was strong. She had faith in God, and in humankind. As she began her senior year of high school, LeAnn’s life was beginning to go smoothly once again. She was at the top of her class and not only had she been offered basketball scholarships to three different universities, but she was a candidate for the U.S. Olympic Track Team in the next Summer Olympics, which were less than two years away. Then, just when everything seemed to be going great, something happened that would be the ultimate test of her faith.

  LeAnne had become quite famous in her neighborhood. There was nobody in that part of the city who had not heard of Leon’s Lemonade Stand. It had been open for business for eight years, and LeAnne never missed a single Friday. During those eight years, Leanne had raised over a quarter of a million dollars, all of which was donated to the Helping Hands Mission.

  On a chilly Friday afternoon in October, LeAnne was closing down her lemonade stand, when a brownie troop from the neighborhood walked up. They told LeAnne that they heard about Leon’s Lemonade Stand and they wanted to meet LeAnne. So, LeAnne talked to them and