Kennedy Day School Lemonade Stand: The Building Process

Over the past several years, the Project Excel vocational program at the Kennedy Day School, has developed work-based projects, providing meaningful experiences for our students that benefit others. These projects have served the local community and communities abroad, responding to needs in Haiti and Pakistan. Currently, our Project Excel students are working in collaboration with Bug’s Bikes to open a lemonade stand that will help fund an adaptive bicycle for a KDS student.

For our staff, the thought of building a real lemonade stand was exciting! Reminiscing about selling lemonade in our own childhoods made us want to share this with KDS students. Each of us working on the project wanted our students to experience this summertime ritual while simultaneously developing meaningful work skills. Aside from the social benefits of the lemonade stand, opportunities to develop functional and practical skills related to communication, mobility, and money are embedded within each of the tasks related to building and running the lemonade stand.

Facilitating this project was not as easy as it appeared, and we have faced our share of challenges along the way. We considered how to build the stand in a way that would allow the students to have full access to the stand and supplies, along with what materials were on-hand to build the stand, where these materials could be stored and how could they be transported easily.

One thing our Kennedy Day School staff can be proud of is our creativity and inventive style! When it comes to making and adapting things for our students, we are quite resourceful. We use what we have on hand to design and construct our projects, and so with some PVC piping, colorful tape, and some fun – our lemonade stand is close to being ready to open for business!

You can read more about our Lemonade Stand project by checking out the other blog posts below.

Part 1 | Kennedy Day School Lemonade Stand: Project Launch

Part 2 | Kennedy Day School Lemonade Stand: The Building Process

Part 3 | Kennedy Day School Lemonade Stand: Taste Testing

Part 4 | Kennedy Day School Lemonade Stand: Pour the Lemonade!