There was an orphanage in their small city

Today, children have an awareness of their social responsibilities even though they usually do not act on it. They do receive a lot of information from the TV and the Internet and discuss it. Tanya, Tinku, Peter and Kate, all age 12, were watching the local TV channel and they found that there was an orphanage in their small city. It housed children, who were either abandoned or, whose parents have died. The children had no place to go. From the show, they realized that the orphanage received only a small amount of funding from the government, and that the rest of the money came from many private sources. Next day at school, they found that many of their friends had watched the same TV program. They were talking to each other about it in class. The teacher caught them talking and sent ten students to the principal’s office.

Punishment for talking in class

The students, who had been sent to the principal’s office, were scared. The principal might give them severe punishment or tell their parents. In turn, the parents would punish them. The principal asked the students to be honest and tell her the whole story. After the story came out, they had this dialog.

Principal: So. Now that you know about this problem, what are you going to do about it?

Peter: I can donate my next week’s allowance. I don’t know what others think.

Manal: We can probably all do something like this but then we are just giving away the money of our parents. We should do something ourselves.

Tanya: What about if we make something for them? No, no, I have a better idea. Last year, I saw that some people served cold drinks to everyone.

Tinku interrupted Tanya: We can run a lemonade stand. That way, we will be giving people something to drink. We can also ask them to pay something for the drinks, and donate the profits to the orphanage.

Social service was better than punishment

The principal decided that her getting the students to do a social service was a better idea than punishing them. She told them that next Sunday they would do this activity. They should seek permission from their parents. She would find a place, and sort out other details but they would have to come the next day and tell her what they needed for the lemonade stand.

The ten students met in the recess. Since Tinku was the man for details, they put him in charge.

Tinku: We will need water, sugar, lemons and cups.

Manal: The water has to be clean and drinkable. I know it is not good for the environment but we should use bottled water. We can advertise the clean water and then people will not mind paying more. Let us get 100 bottles each with 1 liter water. If we give 0.2 liters (200 milliliters) in one drink, we can make 500 drinks. I think we should be able to sell them all.

Kate: Sugar is no good. My aunt has the sugar disease. Others may also have it. Let us use an artificial sweetener. My aunt uses these pills. We can get 500 of these pills.

Supplies needed for a lemonade stand

Peter was busy talking on his mobile (cell phone). Everyone was getting angry at him for not paying attention, until he said: I have all the costs. A one liter bottle of water is Rupees (Rs.) 12 but if we get 100 bottles, they will give them for Rs. 900. Sweetener pills will cost Rs. 50. We will also need Rs. 200 for the lemons. 500 disposable cups will cost Rs. 100. We will also need some ice, say for Rs. 200 and garbage bags for Rs. 100. So the total cost will be Rs. 900 + 50 + 200 + 100 + 200 + 100 which comes out to Rs. 1550.

Tinku: What should we charge for a drink?

Tanya: We should charge only Rs. 10 for a drink but we should also have a box where people can put additional donations for the orphanage.

They went to the principal to tell her what they had decided. The principal said that she would buy all the supplies with her own money but they would have to pay her back from the earnings. She also put Kate and Manal in charge of making four large signs advertising the lemonade stand. A sign had to say the name of the school, price per drink, where the profits would go and the fact that they were being health conscious and using on the clean water. She also told them the address of a shop in the market, and asked them to show up there at 10 in the morning on the coming Sunday. That shop had agreed to give some space and the use of a table for the cause. She also phoned several parents, and four adults agreed to come for supervision.

Lemonade drink sale

Everyone showed up at the chosen spot on Sunday. Three students were responsible for making the lemonade. One took the cash, and another one helped make change. Four students went around with the large signs to tell people about the lemonade stand. One of the students also made sure to put the cups back in garbage bags if any litterbugs threw them on the road.

There was a slow start but soon people lined up. They lined up because they were thirsty and because they had been told by others that the lemonade was delicious. Besides, Rs.10 per drink was not much, especially when the profits were to be donated to an orphanage. By 3 o’clock in the afternoon, all the lemonade was sold. There was no more water. Ice was all melted. There were only a couple of lemons left. The garbage had been bagged for disposal.

Amount donated to the orphanage

Tinku: Peter and I counted that we have Rs. 5000 in the cash. This is consistent with the sale of 500 cups of lemonade each at Rs. 10. We can now return Rs. 1550 to the principal. That leaves a profit Rs. 3450 for donation to the orphanage.

Manal: Not so fast Tinku. Here is the box in which people left additional donations. I just counted. There are Rs. 2300 in the box. People just donated to the orphanage because our lemonade stand reminded them. So, we have a total of Rs. 3450 + 2300 which is Rs. 5750 for the donation.

Principal: Good work. I am happy that you learned something about your responsibilities to the society and raised this money for the orphanage. I will return the money for the supplies. Please, donate that money also to the orphanage.

Tinku: This money keeps on coming. Now we have Rs. 5750 + 1550 which makes Rs. 7300 for the donation.

Some of the parents were impressed with what the kids had done. They donated an additional Rs. 2700 to bring the amount total amount to Rs. 10,000.

Next day, the local TV channel had a news item on how the 12 year old students ran a lemonade stand to donate Rs. 10,000 to the local orphanage. A local newspaper also ran a story praising the students.

Challenge

Your class decides to go for a short trip. Your principal lays down a few conditions: no student can go without parental permission slip, you as the students will have to bear all the expenses and show a report at the end, you not only have to pay for your expenses but also must donate 15% of your expenses to a charity. Decide on your class trip and show all the expenses, how much each student would need to pay and how much money will be donated to a charity.

No solution given for the Challenge school trip. Make it a group activity.