The Lemonade Land

Pop-up Market for Micro Black-Owned Businesses in South Shore, Greater Grand Crossing, and Woodlawn Area

About lemonade land

“This idea came from another founding member. Whom lives on the same block as the vacant land for 14 years. We realized, residents on the South Side see a lot of vacant land, it’s normalized. It’s a daily reminder of the financial inequity this side of town is faced with. What it really proves is how much there’s a need for financial stability. Knowing how unfair life is, sometimes you have to turn lemons into lemonade. Create something from nothing. Thats what we are doing. Turning our lemons of financial inequity into lemonade, financial stability.

With that notion, we set up a fundraising lemonade stand on the land. A few weeks later we gathered a few micro businesses for our pop up market. Our 1st market, we had a few vendors who sold out of all their products. Our 2nd market we had a vendor who did an event at Navy Pier, when she came to our market the next day she made twice as much in two hrs. We had more vendors sell out of their products. We just finished our 3rd pop up market, which we had more vendors, more businesses sell out. From an idea, to a full on market we have grown from 14 businesses to 27 in 5 short weeks. We are excited to continue this journey to assist these businesses and to help them grow. It makes us happy and proud to put money in the hands of black owned businesses who are just starting out. And that makes us proud.”

– Saba Favors