When Life Hands You Lemons

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By Jennifer Dukes Lee
Photos by Adam Albright

Open-heart surgery prompted 9-year-old Anna Vos to use her lemonade stand to raise money for other young heart patients.

When Anna Vos opens her lemonade stand each summer, she does it from the heart—a surgically repaired heart. In fact, even before doctors patched holes in her heart in 2005, the energetic fourth grader from Arnolds Park, Iowa, was peddling lemonade, snow cones, and raffle tickets in support of the American Heart Association (AHA).

Transactions are made under the thatched roof of a bamboo lemonade stand, where Anna lines up foam cups next to an icy pitcher of homemade lemonade, a toy cash register, and a kid-size snow-cone maker. Each penny, quarter, and dollar bill she collects heads straight to the AHA for pediatric heart research. Anna’s efforts to help others have amazed her medical team.

“The average person who finds out she has a heart defect and needs surgery is only really thinking about herself,” says David Hockmuth, M.D., the pediatric heart surgeon who repaired Anna’s heart. “But Anna thought about everybody else who had a heart problem. She’s a remarkable person and a fantastic role model—even for adults.”

Anna’s charitable heart has produced results that draw thirsty crowds with generous wallets. Last summer a man plunked down $50 for an 8-ounce cup of lemonade. And the owner of the convenience store where Anna sets up her stand handed her a $100 check. To date, Anna has raised nearly $2,000 at the lemonade stand. Her fund-raising efforts, which also include selling raffle tickets and participating in an AHA Heart Walk, have topped $4,000 in all.

“I don’t keep any of the money for myself,” Anna says. “I think other people need this more than me.”

This summer, Anna will set up shop again, joking with customers, singing songs, and wearing a bright purple T-shirt that reads: “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade (and sell it to your friends)."