We are part of the Orphan Care Ministry team at our church. This May, we launched our first annual Lemonade Stand campaign. We asked families and individuals in our church to host a lemonade stand or change drive some time in the month of May. Half of the proceeds will be used to start an adoption fund at our church and help church members with the cost of adoption. The other half will be donated to other organizations the promote adoption and orphan care. This year it is Reece's Rainbow, which helps with the adoptions of special needs orphans. Check them out at www.reecesrainbow.org
Our kids have been asking to host a lemonade stand since last summer, so they were very very excited to finally do this one for Orphan Care. We had ours a few weeks back, on one of the rare Saturdays in May when it didn't rain. Actually, the day we did it called for 60% chance of rain. We prayed about it not raining until after we were done, and God definitely answered our prayers. As we were putting our things away, two minutes after we were finished with our stand, it started raining. I love God's timing!
We had our stand at Mimi and PopPop's house because they live closer to a main road. We took turns standing out on the busy street and yelling "Lemonade!!!" Jay and I required small children to be with us for this or else we felt a bit ridiculous doing it on our own. I was pleasantly surprised at how many random people stopped by. It gave us a great chance to explain to them about our Orphan Care ministry and how they could help.
The day before, we put fliers in the mailboxes in our neighborhood and Mimi and PopPop's neighborhood explaining when and why we were hosting a lemonade stand. We had quite a few neighbors stop by and give generous donations. We also texted and facebook messaged a few people who live close by and asked them to come.
Mimi made some delicious lemonade and brownies to sell for 50 cents each. I think of all the people who came, only one gave us only 50 cents. Everyone was so generous! We even had one or two people who couldn't come but still made donations the next day. The kids were very excited to go home and count how much money they raised for orphan care. I was then very proud of them for getting some of their own money from their piggy banks to add to it. They are so excited to know that all of that money will directly help someone be adopted into a family.
Want to help? It's not too late to host a lemonade stand of your own or make a financial donation. Just let me know if you're interested.
No comments:
Post a Comment