Lemonade Stand

In the summer that I was six and my little sister was two, we started an Illumination Lemonade Stand. With the help of my grandparents, Beryl and Walter Frey, we placed a small, white, enameled table at the end of Pease Ave and sold cups of cold Countrytime lemonade and homemade cookies for 10 cents each. We made our signs out of poster board, markers, and glitter from daRosa’s, including one that declared we were “closed for a nap”, something my Gamma insisted upon since we’d be up late for the celebration. We had such fun that we did it again the next year, and the next, quickly expanding that tiny table to a full-sized folding table from the office, complete with a collapsible wooden structure built to hold our poster board “gingerbread”. Other campground children, our friends, and neighbors, joined us to take shifts at the cigar box cash register, all of us learning to make change. One year, we even made uniforms out of white aprons, painters' hats, and puffy fabric paint. 

As we got older, younger family members and friends took the front spots, where cute children were a big draw, and we older, wiser teenagers would run the giant pots of lemonade and trays of cookies out from the kitchen of “Small Frey” any time replenishment was needed. And it was needed often! Some years, we went through three to four Costco-sized containers of Countrytime powder, and as many cookies and brownies as our families could bake. Over the 16 years that the stand ran, well into my college days, we estimate that we donated close to $5,000 to the MVCMA, an impressive feat considering we never raised prices above 50 cents a cup! 

Now, my wife and I own my grandparents’ beloved cottage, and I am about to spend my forty-third summer in this magical place. We have two little girls, 4½ and almost 1½ this summer, and the lemonade stand is in the process of being reborn. We hope that anyone on the Campground during Illumination day will stop by 53 Trinity for a cold drink and homemade sweet. We can’t promise prices as low as twenty years ago, but it will still be one of the best deals in town. As during my childhood, all the proceeds will be donated to the MVCMA. We will teach our daughters the spirit of giving, especially to a place that gives us so much. They have already learned to love being a part of this community, where there will almost always be kids waiting to play on the Tabernacle grounds, and where friendly adults - neighbors who are more like family members - welcome them to porches or applaud their biking skills. In a time when the Campground is looking towards the future and is in a process of growth, these are the things that will always be there, if we protect them. The world right now is divisive, but it is my continuing hope that the MVCMA can evolve and yet still be a place where neighbors look out for each other.

​”The mission of the Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Association is to perpetuate our religious and historical heritage, engaging all in education and spiritual growth in a welcoming faith community.”