YORKTON – On Thursday morning and afternoon the Boys and Girls Club of Yorkton offered up some ice cold beverages and sweets to the public for their Lemonade, Iced Tea & Cookie Sale.
The sale happened outside of their club located on Smith Street.
"As a part of our summer day camps, our older youth always take part in youth led initiatives and part of that was developing a lemonade stand today," said Lorraine Moeller, Executive Director of BGC Yorkton.
Moeller said that the BGC youths were in charge when it came to planning for the day.
"They did everything from planning the event, promoting it, writing sponsorship letters to local businesses to supply the cookies, the juice, the cups and all of that," said Moeller, noting, "they did everything from start to finish."
Moeller went on to add that it was up to the BGC youths to decide what the funds raised would go towards.
"This is – I believe – our fourth year of doing the lemonade stand," said Moeller, adding, "sometimes they've chosen to purchase treats for our neighbours next door at the day care, they've purchased treats for the younger kids in summer day camp that are in our other unit," and, "they've also given back to the club – they've chosen to buy treats for all of the leaders who make the program possible for them all summer – so they kind of get to decide what they want to do with the proceeds of the sale, it's totally youth-led."
Moeller said that BGC Yorkton has seen an increase in patrons of the lemonade stand with each successive year.
"Every year it seems to kind of grow and get more momentum and more people get involved – we seem to have a little bit more traffic every year," said Moeller.
Moeller said that other fundraising initiatives are underway.
"We do currently have our September Cash Calendar happening – so we sell tickets all summer long and then every day in the month of September we draw for a minimum of 100 bucks cash," said Moeller, adding, "so that's happening right now and then we will have a couple other raffles coming up more towards fall."
"We do a WestJet raffle every year where we give away tickets," said Moeller, noting, "they always donate – they're a big supporter of BGC Canada and all of our clubs across the country," and, "we can apply to get 'Gift of Flight' vouchers that they provide at no charge, and then we can raffle them off or use them as auction items,"
Moeller went on to thank the sponsors who helped make the BGC Lemonade, Iced Tea & Cookie Sale happen.
"We'd just really like to thank the businesses who sponsored the lemonade stand – we had Superstore who provided the cookies, we had Save-On-Foods who provided the cups and napkins, Penguin Refrigeration provided the ice and then some of our office staff provided the juice, so thanks to everyone who sponsored it."
