September 9, 2005

Evergreen 8-year-olds enjoy entrepreneurship

Girls co-found startup to support Evergreen Branch Library

Jyothi Gorti 
Special to the Times

Only in Silicon Valley, perhaps, would you find a startup co-founded by four 8-year-old girls and seed-funded by parents encouraging their children to investigate the wonderful world of entrepreneurship.

(From left) Ranjani Subramani  and Apurva Gorti of Tom Matsumoto Elementary School, Anushka Deshmukh  of James Franklin Smith Elementary School and Nivedita Ahlawat of Silver Oak Elementary School formed a lemonade business to raise funds for the Evergreen Branch Library. Despite attending different schools today, the bonds they established in pre-school have remained strong.

What began as a simple street-side lemonade stand ended up as a registered business— A.N.A.

Refreshments—primarily to overcome the hurdles faced along the way in the lemonade-selling process.

With the onset of summer break—and the Evergreen Branch Library on Aborn Road closed for construction—Ranjani Subra-mani, Nivedita Ahlawat, Anushka Deshmukh and Apurva Gorti ran personal libraries and made less frequent visits to libraries farther away.

An article in the Evergreen Times about the Branch Library Campaign, indicating that the Evergreen Branch Library was looking for donations prior to its reopening in the summer of 2006, encouraged the girls to combine two of their favorite summer activities—lemonade stands and books.

“I have always wanted to donate for different things,” says Nivedita Ahlawat. “But this time, I saw the library being constructed and that was the first thing I thought of. The money can buy new books for the library and it can be a better library.”

The young entrepreneurs decided to create a lemonade stand in the Evergreen area with the slogan “Lemonade for Library” to increase awareness of the library’s need for donations. Their families funded the initial venture. Planning included estimating the cost of lemonade, buying the supplies, making posters and working out the right recipe for fresh lemonade.

The girls learned some valuable lessons in business economics. They set up their first lemonade stand at Evergreen Village Plaza during the popular “Music in the Park” series. Since the concerts attract many local Evergreen residents, this seemed like a good avenue to raise awareness and funds.

Many people ventured over and bought lemonade and cookies, complimenting the girls on their efforts. ANA Refreshments sold the cups of lemonade for 25 cents, and one resident even remarked that the price of the lemonade should be raised to 50 cents, since it was earmarked for a noble cause. Some residents also made small contributions even though they were not interested in buying anything.

Sometimes bitter
While the response from local residents was heartwarming and encouraging, not everything was smooth sailing.
Lemonade stands have been shut down in Florida and Massachusetts due to technical legalities, despite the public outrage of throwing young budding entrepreneurs out of business. San Jose is no different.

While operating the lemonade stand in the Evergreen Village Plaza, Shapell Homes Manage-ment informed ANA Refreshments that they couldn’t sell their beverages in the square during the “Music in the Park” concerts, because it threatened the business of other local shops that help fund the concerts.

Lest the budding entrepreneurs get squeezed out of the lemonade business, their parents decided to legitimize the business by getting them a business license—determined not to have their kids become another statistic in this venture.

Permit/license process
The entire permit and license endeavor became a wild goose chase of uncovering new processes and encountering new hurdles. There is no one person or document that describes the dos and the don’ts.

The San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs directs you to the San Jose Finance/Business department to obtain a business license. The San Jose Finance/Business department grants licenses with no exceptions listed.

The license permits one to sell at any public location within city limits. Despite having a business license, Shapell representatives once again approached the girls to shut down the lemonade stand.

Upon returning to the San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs and the Business/Finance department, city personnel clarified that one cannot sell in a public location—even with a license—if that public area has already been assigned to another organization for an event.

Sometimes sweet
Since the girls were planning to donate 100 percent of their earnings to the library, they couldn’t afford the regular business tax fee. The San Jose Business/Finance department informed them that they could get a tax and fee exemption because they were minors. They used some of the money raised to obtain a tax-exempt business license, opening up the possibility of selling lemonade legally.

(From left) Apurva Gorti, Nivedita Ahlawat and Ranjani Subramani (standing) created ANA Refreshments to legally sell lemonade in the Evergreen community as a library fund-raiser. Not pictured: Anushka Deshmukh.

Having sold hundreds of cups of lemonade for 25 cents each and cookies for 50 or 75 cents each, ANA refreshments generated approximately $150. It’s a small amount in comparison to the need, but every dollar counts.

ANA Refreshments presented their donation in person to Marie Bernardy, executive director of the San Jose Public Library Foundation. Bernardy and the entire staff were so appreciative of this effort that they created a big fuss over the donation and organized a library tour for the girls.

They also published their acknowledgement on the library Web site: http://www.sjplf.org/new_constr.htm#evergreen. Kids in our community need this kind of encouragement. It motivates them further, reinforces the need to contribute back to the community, and in the long run, helps develop them into good citizens.

“I love books,” says Ranjani enthusiastically. “It’s frustrating to not have a library nearby. I am more motivated to sell lemonade now.”

Support the cause
All in all, it was an interesting summer for the girls. They learned valuable lessons in business, economics, city zones, licenses and permits, and of course, how to make a stellar cup of lemonade. Above all, they experienced the joy of giving and contributing to the community.

When asked how it was to run a business, Anushka replied, “It’s easy to run a company like a lemonade stand. I think it’s harder to run a store, because there are more things to buy and sell.”

Apurva provided a different perspective, “You have to have focus. You have to always be there. If you are not there, your business cannot work. I learned that running a business is very hard, and you have to have a permit and license to run it in public.”

All the girls agree they had the most fun actually serving the lemonade and cookies to their customers and counting how much they made afterward. Their least favorite business task was advertising —walking around with banners to attract folks to come to the stand.

Despite all the hurdles, they talk about expanding the business be-yond lemonade and cookies and contributing to-wards other worthy causes, such as homeless shelters.

In the meantime, they have been invited by the San Jose Library Found-ation to share a booth at the Day in the Park Multi-cultural Festival on Saturday, Oct. 1 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Lake Cunningham Regional Park. If you happen to see ANA Refresh-ments, stop by if you’d like to help generate funds for the library.