Make A Stand

I never know who I might meet at my health club. I was planning a completely different post today but then I met 9 year old Vivienne Harr and her dad in the hot tub at the Marin Jewish Community Center and couldn't wait to tell her story.  Vivienne was a typical vivacious and pretty nine year old but when we started talking I realized that she is anything but ordinary.  She is amazing!

A year ago she saw a picture of two boys held as slave laborers in Nepal. The thought that children her age were slaves who had to work for nothing really touched her and she wanted to do something about it. So she did what any eight year old would have done. She started a lemonade stand. Only that stand made $700 the first day. She ran it for 52 days straight. She went to sell lemonade in Time Square in New York and by the end of the year she had raised a million dollars. YES. ONE MILLION.

But that was just the beginning of her company called MAKE A STAND. Now major grocery chains like Whole Foods are carrying her lemonade. Google has just ordered it for their headquarters. Kraft tried to buy her company.( But she said no. She wants it to stay small and focused). Her lemonade is made from her grandmother's recipe from all organic and fair trade ingredients.   Children are going to school in Guatamala because she buys their parents sugar cane. Her dad gave up his job in a leap of faith to devote himself full time to her cause. The week after he quit working they got the order from Google.

Oh and yes. The profits all still go to stamping out child slave labor. And Vivienne still goofs around in the pool, making strange hairstyles for herself under water. And in two weeks time she'll be appearing on Ellen.

I'm the sort of person who always chats with people I meet. And look what fabulous stories I find!