In rural Alaska, options for food and drinks can be limited. But one day each year in Nome, the choices multiply. Last Saturday, over 50 roadside stands turned the city into a bustling marketplace, and local kids were the ones running them.
The work started two days before the stands opened. A group gathered at Pioneer Igloo on Front Street in Nome to talk business. Northrim Bank Branch Manager Drew McCann walked a group of excited kids through the basics: costs, pricing, and profit.
“Understanding how much the cost per cup is, plus the cost of your supplies, tells you how much you pay for your lemonade,” McCann said. “Did you know you pay for your lemonade?”
The kids wrote down their investors, in many cases a parent sitting next to them, and how they would pay them back for the upfront costs of the operation. They mapped out how much they wanted to save, spend, and ultimately profit.
“You can adjust this, this is the cool thing too with goals guys, if you make more money than you were expecting you can increase how much you are going to save and spend and give," McCann explained to the group. "And on the other side if you don't make enough you can reduce how much you spend or save or donate.”
Attendees also designed their stands, planned sanitation, and came up with slogans to lure customers
The big day
Two days later, those business plans were set in motion. Nearly 50 stands dotted a map with their names, locations, and hours of operation.
Nine-year-old Coco staffed her stand “Bubba and Coco’s Creations”, which was set up on a folding table outside her house. She sold neatly arranged baked goods, lemonade, homemade lip balm, Indian Tacos, and nachos. Her dad ran back and forth from the house with plates of hot food.
“Don't panic when there are a lot of customers,” Coco advised. “And just be polite to people.”
In addition to food and drink, Coca sold homemade chapstick, which she positioned front and center on the table.
“These are organic and they are edible and I made them all by myself,” she said. “I just looked up a recipe that was really easy and organic and hypoallergenic for people.”
Her hopes for the day were twofold: “help people” and to “get some money.”
Sales, she said, were good, and business was booming. Her goal was to make $500 and with a few hours left to go, she was nearly there.
“I'm going to spend it on stuff for my school and theater,” Coco said.
Across town, Marjorie, 14, and Tessa, 11, opened their stand, “Tundra Berry Babes” early in the day to catch the morning rush.
“I baked like all of the night til early in the morning,” Marjorie said.
For the breakfast crowd they’re selling cinnamon rolls, cookies, coffee, and raspberry lemonade. Later, they rolled out grilled salmon and rice.
Their goal was to make $400 by the end of the day.
“I also don't know what I’m saving up for,” Tessa said. “I guess just for when I leave on vacation, I don't know.”
While some entrepreneurs are less sure where their earnings will go, others were set on a clear course.
“My sister and I are saving up for ferrets,” Fisher Krift said while standing behind his booth in Anvil City Square. He and his sister Kinley hope to raise enough for two ferrets.
“We are saving up for them because our mom had them too, so we wanna get them,” he explained.
They decorated their stand accordingly — with ferret stickers on lemonade cups and tiny paper ferrets on cupcakes. Fisher said they spent two days preparing.
After researching costs, he estimated they would need about $600 for two ferrets, plus supplies, but finds out later in the day that’s only enough to cover the cost of one. While the day started off slow, he said by midday business was picking up. Plus, he has a strategy for stimulating sales.
“When people are walking by you can ask them if they want to buy anything like lemonade, or a salad,” Fisher said. “At the start we didn't have many but now we are getting a lot more. This is our second bowl of antipasto salad.”
At the end of the day, the young owners and operators returned to the Pioneer Igloo for a celebration.
The event is called Mizuktata, an Inupiaq word for “let’s drink juice”, and for the last five years, Krystal Hensley has been at the helm. This year, she partnered with the Bering Sea Lions Club.
Hensley said when the state stopped funding the branded, national Lemonade Day event in 2022, she and another mom wanted to continue the community tradition. So, they renamed it Mizuktata and kept it going.
“Their learning so much just from this one day and everything that adds up to this day with the workshop and budgeting,” Hensley said. “I experienced it first hand because my daughter is still doing the lemonade stand, so putting that list together and the shopping stuff and how much it's going to cost and how much she needs to budget. Just seeing her figure all of that out on her own is why I'm like ‘this is why I’m still doing this’.”
Since its first year officially renamed to Mizuktata, Hensley said the event has doubled in size. She estimated more than one hundred kids took part this year, and the community showed up, too.
“There were so many people out. I feel like every stand we went to there was a line,” Hensley said. “So the community was great at supporting these young entrepreneurs and that's why I love Mizuktata, I look forward to it every year.”
Families sat around large tables as the Bering Sea Lions Club handed out toys and raffled off prizes. Nine-year-old Coco of “Bubba and Coco’s Creation” took home new chalk and a figurine. She said she beat her $500 goal and took in $800, though some of that is going back to her original investor.
“I have to give my dad some of it,” she lamented.
Coco said the highlight of Mizuktata was counting her earnings after she closed shop. A skill, she said, she learned that same day.
