Avianna Johnson may be soft spoken and a little shy, but this 9-year-old fourth grader at Guthridge School in Parsons is rockin’ her own business outside of school hours, with the generous help of her mom, Darian Spall, and dad, Isjon Johnson.
Avi’s Lemonade isn’t your typical kid’s lemonade stand set up on a street corner by their house, serving lemonade made from a can or packet, though she admits that was kind of what she envisioned as a start.
“She has always said she wanted a lemonade stand,” her mom explained. ”We finally said, ‘Okay, if we’re going to do a lemonade stand, we’re going to do this on steroids’. It was all kind of her idea. We just bought everything and kind of made her vision come true.”
Avi makes her lemonade from fresh squeezed lemons and she adds flavors..
“The first time I did it was at King Cash parking lot,” Avi said.“We had about 10 flavors.”
They had a great turn out. Their next event, Juneteenth, was a hit, too.
“I think at one point she made at least $1,200,” her mom said. “I asked her, ‘Avi, what are you going to do with all this money?’ She thought about it for a minute and looked at her dad and I and said, ‘I’m going to invest back into my business.’ I was just blown away because I didn’t know what 9-year-old would even say that. I didn’t know she could even comprehend business like that.
“Most kids want to go blow their money on candy and stuff. She just puts it all in savings. She knows we have to restock and stuff. Once in a while she will ask for a Stanley cup or something, but most of what she earns she saves because she understands there is a goal at the end of all this.”
Investing back into the business is exactly what they did. They bought more flavors and bought a better tent. They booked more events and now they are traveling. They went to Third Thursday in Joplin, Mo. and a PSU rally in Pittsburg. A couple of weeks ago she went to a festival in Abilene and set up as a vendor there.
Her next event will be local - the Oktoberfest, this Saturday in Forest Park, beginning at 5 p.m.
“She actually tells us what she wants to do. She is the boss. Dad handles the money, I handle squishing lemons and she handles the rest,” her mom said. “It’s kind of funny how she is directing everything for us.”
Darian said it didn’t hit them until they were a couple of events in, what they were committing to as parents.
“We did not know it was going to be like this. Her dad works at least 60 hours a week. I work 40 hours a week, so to have another small business like this… it doesn’t seem like a lot, but it really is a lot on the side, helping her market and always posting on her Facebook page, ordering cups, buying the lemons, washing the lemons. It’s like we don’t have time to do it, we have to make time to do it all,” her mom said. “Some weekends I just don’t want to do it, I just want to relax, but it’s for her. That is our motive as parents that at the end of the day, we are doing this for her, and she has learned a lot along the way.”
Avi said she couldn’t operate the stand without the help of her mom and dad. To them she said, “Thank you so much for helping me. I appreciate it.”
Having expanded her business, customers now have more than 30 flavors to choose from when they visit Avi’s Lemonade. She loves to create new flavor combos and comes up with names for all her new flavors, too.
“It’s really fun,” Avi said.
She has even created some fall flavors for Oktoberfest. She is also happy to mix flavors according to what her customers want, too.
Asked if it is the best lemonade around, Avi said, “Probably!”
When her tent gets super busy, and a lot of customers come all at once, she said she gets a little overwhelmed and nervous still, but she is learning to work through it.
She said most customers are very nice and she loves serving to the community. To them she issued a big “Thank you!”
For Avi, this business is not some temporary whim. If business continues to go well, she hopes to save enough money to purchase a food truck or trailer by the time she is in high school.
“I hope I can save up for a trailer and be at Katy Days one day,” she said. “I would love to be in a fair, too.”
Right now, packing everything up and hauling it in boxes is a lot of extra work, but it’s worth it.
“I didn’t think it was going to be like this. I thought it was just going to be a little lemonade stand, but it really took a turn for the good,” Darian said. “We were so nervous. I think we were all scared to fail. What if no one comes? What if it’s not a hit? What if they don't like our lemonade? But, I had told her and her dad had actually told her, ‘This is kind of how every small business starts. You can’t be scared to fail. You just put your product out there, and market it the best you can, and if they like it you’re going to know. I think that Parsons and the surrounding areas like it because we get a lot of feedback and people do come back for more.”
Operating her own food trailer is her long-term goal for her future. Avi said this is what wants to do as a full-time job when she grows up.
“It’s rewarding for her to watch her little business grow,” her mom said.
“It feels really good,” Avi said of operating her own business. “It’s kind of mind blowing.”