When Life Gives You Lemons, Start a GoFundMe

I just wanted to take a quick second and update you on the fabulous progress of our lemonade stand fundraiser.

If you will recall, two months ago I started a GoFundMe page in response to the heartwarming and totally logical outpouring of support for the Berkeley, CA hot dog vendor who was running an illegal, unregulated, and most-likely unsanitary hot dog stand outside a football game. The police arrived to shut him down, and took his sixty dollars into evidence.

A nice man filmed the episode while kindly giving the police officer career advice, and then put the video on the internet and started a GoFundMe page to help the then-unnamed hot dog scofflaw with his legal expenses. Naturally, they have raised $93,000.

Not wanting to let that kind of largess pass my neighborhood by, I started my own GoFundMe to raise money for our possible legal fees if our unregulated and unsanitary lemonade stand was ever shut down by local law enforcement. And also in case we needed tacos.

You can find our ongoing fundraiser page at: https://www.gofundme.com/smidges-little-lemonade-stand-fund

Again, here’s the compelling verbiage from our campaign:

Describe who will benefit:

Me (and also my poor, deserving children, maybe)

Detail what the funds will be used for:

Possible legal expenses and loss of income if we are ever hassled by the police over business license issues.

And tacos.

Explain how soon you need the funds:

ASAP! Who knows when we could be unfairly ticketed or shut down.

Plus, we want tacos.

Talk about what the support will mean to you:

After the recent outpouring of support for the Berkeley hot dog vendor, I just figured, hey, people love to support other people who run non-licensed and totally unregulated street food operations, so your donation to this campaign will mean the world to me!

Share how grateful you will be for help:

I will be so grateful for your support, I might even "pay it forward" by giving this money (after any upcoming legal and taco expenses, of course) to my good friends at RPAL - the Roseville Police Activities League - an amazing non-profit organization that helps kids in need, and steers them in the right direction, so they don't grow up thinking they have the right to run illegal businesses.

Again, our GoFundMe link is: https://www.gofundme.com/smidges-little-lemonade-stand-fund

Well, as you can imagine based on the success of the hot dog guy’s campaign, our lemonade stand fundraiser has taken off like a rocket. Thankfully, we have not incurred any stand-related legal expenses to date, and we’ve been mooching tacos off the neighbors, so just this evening we were able to present the entire amount raised thus far to the amazing folks at RPAL.

Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of good folks like you, our steamrolling juggernaut of a fundraiser has collected an astounding $49.44.

I was proud to present the oversized cardboard check to RPAL tonight at the gala awards banquet. It was tough to get a handle on all the emotions of the evening, due to the media frenzy surrounding the check presentation, but I think I kept my composure admirably.

Remember, you can find our GoFundMe page at: https://www.gofundme.com/smidges-little-lemonade-stand-fund

While we are basking in the glow of high achievement tonight, we must remember a lot of work remains to be done. We’re thrilled with our progress so far, but we’re still about $99,945.00 shy of our goal, so please continue to give generously.

Once again, our GoFundMe link is: https://www.gofundme.com/smidges-little-lemonade-stand-fund

Thanks for your continued support!

See you soon,

-Smidge

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