Vivienne Harr, accompanied by Sir Patrick Stewart, rings the bell for Twitter’s IPO launch last November.
Lemonade stands are a hallmark of childhood: sitting at a neighborhood corner ensuring that your fellow neighbors receive refreshment on a hot summer day, and hopefully earning a little pocket money in the process. Yet some kids take lemonade stands to a whole new level. One of them is 8-year-old Vivienne Harr, whose lemonade stand became the most famous stand in the world.
After seeing a photo of two enslaved boys, Vivienne decided to raise $100,000 by opening her lemonade stand for a whole year. Rain or shine, Vivienne sold lemonade every day, hoping that she would be able to end child slavery through her efforts. On day 52, Vivienne got the surprise of a lifetime: her lemonade stand became a nationwide–and eventually worldwide–movement.
On that day, Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof retweeted Vivienne’s lemonade stand. News outlets quickly jumped on the story, turning Vivienne’s stand into the Make a Stand movement. By day 173, Mayor Michael Bloomberg welcomed Vivienne to Times Square to sell her lemonade. It was in Times Square that Vivienne exceeded her goal of $100,000 and donated the money to Not For Sale, a leading anti-slavery organization. But she wasn’t done–and she won’t be until child slavery ends.
Vivienne continued her stand for the full 365 days. She then decided to bottle her organic, Fair Trade Lemon-aid and sells it in 165 stores on the West Coast and foodservice programs. So far, she has raised over $1 million and turned her movement into one of the first Certified B Corps in America: Make a Stand, Inc.
Vivienne has also continued her work through outreach to promote her mission. She became the youngest featured speaker at a TedTalk and an honorary member of the World Affairs Council. She rung the bell at Twitter‚Äôs IPO launch in New York last November, and is going to be a speaker at the Wisdom 2.0 Summit in February. She has also authored a book, Make a stand! “When life gives you lemons, change the world!”, and will have her own documentary, #standwithme, to be released in February 2014. Finally, she has recently formed a new 501(c)3 non-profit organization, the Make a Stand Foundation, to help free the 18 million children in slavery and keep them safe.
Now, at the age of 10, Vivienne has become one of the leading voices in the fight against child slavery, and–according to her–she’s just getting started. You go, girl!
-Tiffany Rhoades
Junior Girl
Girl Museum Inc.