Local school raises money for charity through lemonade wars

JONESBORO, Ark-When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and that’s what one local school is doing as they raise money for two hospitals in the area.

Students at University Heights Intermediate School have just days left in the 2020-2021 school year.

And they are spending it raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and St. Bernards Medical Center.

By selling lemonade in a friendly competition, they’re calling “lemonade wars”.

“They were reading the book ‘Lemonade War,' and they wanted to create their own lemonade wars. And so, we planned a project-based learning unit where they incorporated things they’ve learned in literacy and math from the entire year. And they were able to use those skills in this project,” says teacher Claire Reid.

Characters in the book compete to see who can sell more cups of the sweet drink.

A similar format for students at university heights, as they split into three groups for lemonade wars.

Reid and fellow teacher Whitney Clements served as the bankers with students submitting a budget for the competition.

The price for a cup of lemonade was 25 cents, with the competition running last week.

While serving up the drink was fun for one student, it was the bigger picture of helping people that he enjoyed.

“We’re not just making [lemonade], we’re just helping other people or hospitals that they’re like need help with kids or adults that have cancer problems,” says student Jose Hernandez.

In total students, raised $232 for St. Bernards NICU and St. Jude.

Reid says students learned real-world problems and skills like teamwork as they took on leadership roles in the competition.

“Marketing, accounting, interacting with customers and trying to analyze the end of each day what went well, and what they needed to work on for the next day to sell better,” she said.

Reid says that lemonade wars were such a success that they hope to include students in different grades from other Nettleton school campuses in the competition next year.