How much can a student learn from a pile of fresh lemons and a little sugar?

As it turns out, quite a bit - that is if the student turns these simple ingredients into a profitable lemonade stand.

Students in the Wooster City School District will have the opportunity to gain a better appreciation of the complexities of running their own business when the district takes part in a unique entrepreneurship program known as Lemonade Day.

The two Wooster High School teachers who are coordinating the effort locally - Derek Bode and Richard Lee - gave the Wooster City School District board of education an overview of the innovative program designed to teach students, who choose to participate, the ins and outs of entrepreneurship.

“Lemonade Day provides an opportunity for families, businesses, community organizations and schools to come together for a common purpose – to train the next generation of entrepreneurs through a free, fun, engaging and experiential activity for the students,” said Bode.

With a recipe for made-from-scratch lemonade in hand, the student participant and a parent or other caring adult work through the process of creating their own lemonade stand via a detailed workbook.

According to Lee and Bode, through the microcosm of a lemonade stand, students learn key business and economics concepts such as supply and demand, credit and debt, gross and net income and return on investment.

Students will also have the opportunity to hone their business skills by learning how to create a budget, prepare a profit and loss statement, secure investors, select a site and purchase supplies, as well as the importance of customer service.

The program also focuses on teaching the budding entrepreneurs life skills such as problem solving, making presentations, setting goals, the importance of pre-planning and “21st century skills and higher order thinking,” said Lee.

Bode said that along the way students also learn “fundamental lessons about life, success, and themselves.”

In order to encourage students to become successful, contributing members of their communities in the future, the concept of “save a little, spend a little, share a little” is a fundamental part of the program.

“The students are encouraged to set up savings accounts with local banks so that’s an excellent opportunity for them to learn savings,” said Lee.

The children also learn about the importance of giving back to their community.

“Each child is encouraged to donate some of the proceeds from the lemonade stand to a charity of their choice,” Lee added.

The program, which originated in Houston, Texas in 2007, has spread to 37 cities across the nation. The program has become so popular that last year alone participants sold 5.2 million glasses of lemonade, earned $6.8 million and donated $2 million to charities.

Bode, who is an industrial technology teacher at Wooster High School, and Lee, who teaches personal financial literacy at the high school, learned about the program during a recent entrepreneurship forum the pair attended.

In the audience for the forum was another key player in the local launch of Lemonade Day – a representative of the Burton D. Morgan Foundation.

“They had the same energy and enthusiasm that we did,” said Bode.

The foundation agreed to spearhead a Lemonade Day pilot program in Northeast Ohio and hosted a meeting in Hudson Feb. 24 to officially launch the program.

Bode and Lee are busy making plans for the local launch of Lemonade Day, which is scheduled for May 1. Information on the local program will be made available to students in the district shortly.

For more information on Lemonade Day, visit http://www.lemonadeday.org.