DETROIT – What started off as a seemingly innocent way for a young man to help the city he loves has turned into an international outpouring of support. In just three days, the Detroit lemonade stand started by 9-year-old Joshua Smith has made over $1,200 and his family still intends on donating the money to the city.
“I just heard that we were in a crisis and I wanted to help,” Smith said, crediting his father with the idea to sell popcorn along with the lemonade. “I was trying to come up with [a goal] of $600 or $700 and my mom suggested $1,000.”
Smith first came up with the idea in June when the city was facing potential insolvency. He felt that he had to do something to help the city, despite the fact that it faces a deficit in excess of $100 million.
“The week has been tedious, strenuous, arduous,” Flynn Smith, Joshua’s father, jokingly said. “Monday was cool. He was still just a boy in the neighborhood. Our profit from Monday was $32. We took in $100 but because of expenses and everything else, we only made $32. But after Monday, it hit.”
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What spawned from the lemonade stand was a national and international response, with donations coming from all over the United States as well as Great Britain and Canada. There has also been a steady stream of local, national, and international media coming to their home in Detroit’s Russell Woods neighborhood on the west side.
The sale began at 5 p.m. on Monday afternoon, and will end tonight at 8 p.m. – “He wanted to do it every day for a week,” Mr. Smith a high school math teacher and minister, said. “This is the first of any kind of anything like this, ever. We let him come up with the prices.
“We would chime in and educate him on how think things through. I told him ‘This is your thing. You’re going to be out there sitting at the table. We got your back.’”
By Tuesday, when word of the lemonade stand had spread through social media and eventually radio and television, Joshua had made a $500 profit. People had also begun dropping off donations at the family’s home.
“That’s the power of media,” Mr. Smith said jokingly about the response to his son’s business. “Each day starts the same. I come down and people have dropped some stuff in the mail slot. We’ve had donations from London to California. It’s been a real special thing to see that people thought this was worth joining in with it financially.
“I’m very proud of him. It’s not often that someone sees a small problem and wants to do anything about it, much less a big problem – the city’s broke. We have adults who understand some of the complexities of that and come away jaded and negative.”
The response from the city came quickly. Members of the Detroit City Council presented his family with a “Spirit of Detroit” award on Thursday and will honor him on Tuesday morning.
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing called Smith on Wednesday to thank him for his efforts to help the city. Bing, a former business owner, thanked Smith for his creativity and ingenuity along with his hard work.
“I want to applaud him for his entrepreneurial spirit for setting up a business in the city of Detroit even at the age of 9,” Bing said on Wednesday. He asked Smith’s family to take the money and use it to set up a college fund him instead of giving it to the city
“I think that’s probably more significant than trying to raise money for the city,” Bing said. “If he gets an education and comes back to this city as an entrepreneur, he can do more for the city at that point with an education than raising this money at the present.”
Smith’s parents insist, however, they are standing by their plan to donate the money to the city. Joshua’s mother, Rhonda Smith, says that he already has a college fund started and that he wanted to keep his word in giving the money to the city.
“Those who are more cynical in their orientation have doubted that we would [give the city the money],” Mr. Smith said. “Especially now that you’ve even got the mayor saying ‘keep the money,’ other people saying keep the money, but I want to let everybody know that we’re going to do what we say we’re going to do.”
The family is still trying to figure out when they will deliver the money to the city. In terms of donating directly to the city, citizens can give money to a city teller on the first floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center – commonly referred to as the “City-County Building” – in downtown Detroit. The money would go to the city’s general fund unless otherwise specified.
“My pastor is trying to set it up where we can make a presentation on Sunday,” Mr. Smith said. “As far as I’m concerned, on Monday, I’ll go get a cashier’s check, take him down to the City-County Building, and show him how it all goes.”
Joshua has dreams of being an athlete when he grows up, not a businessman – he said that he loves playing basketball, baseball, and tennis – and has a giving nature that is similar to his parents. He was not looking for any kind of fame, but simply wanted to help the only city he’s known his entire life.
“He prays nightly for the city,” Mr. Smith said. “He’s an awesome little boy. I don’t know if he fully appreciates the magnitude of this thing.”
“He sees things and says ‘Dad, what can we do?’ I didn’t know he was going to take that and apply it to a citywide problem. He’s greatly eclipsed anything that his mother or I have done. For him to start a grassroots movement and to be a blessing to the city, that’s all original.”
Follow Jay Scott Smith on Twitter @JayScottSmith