Our story

In 2012, fifth generation West Texan and longtime local business leader Charlie Hamilton, along with his wife, Kate, and their two boys, Carson and Conrad, brought Lemonade Day to Lubbock, Texas.

A serial entrepreneur, Charlie started his business career 35 years ago, at age 12, with his first fireworks stand. Little did he know at the time, his friend who had started a snow cone stand across the street would become his business partner decades later.

Since those early days, Charlie has mentored countless new entrepreneurs with the many lessons learned from his business ventures. When he heard about Lemonade Day’s vision to empower today’s youth to become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, they had him at “hello.” Charlie became Lubbock’s first City Champion, and the Hamiltons donated the initial seed money to put Lubbock on the Lemonade Day city map.

The first year was a whirlwind, pulling a year-long project off in only a few short months. Glenda Mathis, the Chief Executive Officer of the YWCA, and her team, were perfect partners to execute all of the events, registration, and details. The YWCA organized hundreds of registration events and became the training partner for volunteers and other nonprofit youth-serving organizations across the community. Events were held to engage Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Clubs, churches, schools, youth groups, and the YWCA after school programs. Cathy Landtroop, CEO/Founder of Landtroop Strategies, was recruited as the mouthpiece. Her public relations and marketing firm got the message out that started a snowball effect. Three thousand youth were registered that first year and many local business, political, and media partners jumped on board to make it a raging success.

Local youth learned how to set a goal, find an investor, make a plan and a budget, select a location, work really hard, provide good customer service and make a profit. After paying their investor back with interest, they learned to spend some of their profits, save some for a rainy day, and share some with their community. As an added benefit, thousands of dollars were donated back to area charities through the generosity of hundreds of new small business owners.

The results were so impactful that Lubbock was featured at the National Lemonade Day City Director’s Conference, giving two presentations during the two-day event. Shortly thereafter, Charlie Hamilton was recruited to serve on the National Board of Directors, while Landtroop Strategies was hired to handle public relations for National Lemonade Day.

Charlie passed the torch to one of Lubbock’s finest men and business leaders, Ron Betenbough of Betenbough Homes, and Ron became the 2013 City Champion aka the ‘Promoter in Chief.’ He and his team retained Glenda and Cathy to continue the charge!

During the last twelve years, the program has continued to grow throughout the Lubbock community.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the generous partners who have not only donated their time and money, but have also utilized their own spheres of influence to make it all work. So, a very special thanks to all of the local partners and underwriters - without whom Lubbock Lemonade Day would not be possible!