‘My lemonade changes lives’
THIS INSPIRATIONAL TEENAGER IS MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE WITH THE POWER OF SOUR...
When her dear grandfather Sam was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND), 14-year-old Juliette Jones was devastated to learn there was no cure.
‘Every time I saw him he got worse and worse. Hardly anyone knew about MND and it felt like nobody cared,’ she tells New Idea.
After her grandfather died in 2014, Juliette felt compelled to do something.
‘It’s such a horrible disease and I didn’t want that to happen to anyone else,’ she explains.
Chatting it over with her mum Claudia, the teen decided she’d sell homemade lemonade and donate the profits to MND research.
Juliette used $150 of her own money and borrowed another $150 from her parents to get a lemonade stand up and running.
Says Claudia: ‘My husband built it for her, I sewed all the soft furnishings like the bunting and Juliette got to choose all the materials she wanted to use.’
Finding a recipe online, the Sydney schoolgirl experimented with various ingredients until she was happy with the result. Then she had to figure out where to sell it.
‘I asked the owners of Ramsgate Foodies And Farmers Market if I could have a stall as I was raising money and they offered us a spot for free,’ Juliette says.
‘We thought she would make $50 or $60, and it would take her a long time to pay it all back,’ Claudia adds. ‘But she made $500 on her first day! She paid herself back, she paid us back and she had money to donate.’
Over the past two years Juliette’s business, CSJ lemonaid, has grown exponentially.
Along with Claudia and dad Spencer, she devotes 12 hours a week to making and selling lemonade and other products including lemon curd, preserved lemons and lemon tarts.
Even little brother Brynn, six, helps out – but he’s overzealous when it comes to quality control.
‘He comes [to the markets], but he drinks more lemonade than he makes!’ Claudia laughs.
Juliette has raised an amazing $33,000 in two years.
‘This month, I’m having a party to donate a cheque to Professor Dominic Rowe at the Macquarie University MND Research Centre for a new clinical trial that is very likely to slow the progression of MND in his patients,’ she says.
‘It’s just so amazing to think that one day my lemonade will help find a cure for MND.’
Says a proud Claudia: ‘My dad was always saying to me how special Juliette was and that she was a really smart kid. I know he’d have tears in his eyes.’