Highland Park 12-Year-Old Runs Philanthropic Lemonade Stand

Gabriella Cooperman may be one of the only 12-year-olds in the world who runs a lemonade stand with corporate sponsors.

Th Edgewater Middle School student at the corner of Sheridan Road and Lakeside Place for the past six years. She's made $13,000 during that time, all of which has gone to a Lake Forest nonprofit that provides therapeutic horseback riding called Equestrian Connection. This year's sale will be held from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

"The kids that benefit the most are those with speech delays or any developmental delays," Cooperman's mom, Dena, explained about horseback therapy. "Children who have cerebral palsy, who don't even walk, they get on the horse and it helps activate muscles that otherwise atrophy."

Cooperman, who began the lemonade stand with the help of her parents when she was five, said she's always wanted to help people.

"You're never too young to make a difference in someone's life," Cooperman said.

Cooperman picked Equestrian Connection because she saw how much horseback therapy helped her seven-year-old sister, Danielle, who was born with low muscle tone and developmental delays.

"A lot of people don't know how to go about helping others," Cooperman said. She explained that by buying some of her lemonade or her mother's homemade heath crunch chocolate chip cookies, "everyone feels really good about themselves."

This year, the fundraising goal is ambitious: $9,600 in two days, which is enough to cover a child's horseback therapy and some of the horse's expenses. But by Thursday afternoon, Cooperman had already fundraised $2,000 in online donations and a kick-off sale. 

It helps that Cooperman's got people with know-how to advise her. Her parents encouraged her to reach out to sponsors, and she now has 14 of them, including Solo Cup, the Chicago Bears and PepsiCo. Cooperman's dad helped her build the stand, and while she helps her mom with the baking, she relies on her expertise in that department.

"She's very familiar with this recipe, the first time she made them was 25 years ago," Cooperman said. "I'm not 25 yet."

Though she's got time to make up her mind, Cooperman says the experience of running the lemonade stand for charity has inspired her to pursue something similar when she grows up.

"What I think would be really cool is if Cookies for Charity were a program so we could encourage kids to do little things like their own lemonade stand and raising money for charity," Cooperman said. "I think that would be really cool."

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