The day the thief struck was hot and sunny. Young Josh and Rebecca Caldwell were tending a lemonade stand outside their house in Chesapeake Bay last August when they saw the stranger park his car beside them. But he wasn’t there to buy a cool cup of lemonade.
A man in a light-colored shirt and shades got out of the car, walked over, and in broad daylight swiped their jar full of dollar bills. He then ran back to his car and sped off.
The two Caldwell kids, Rebecca, 10, and Joshua, 8, had been busy entrepreneurs all summer, hawking lemonade in their normally-safe neighborhood for a little extra cash. That day they had a table and two chairs set up on the driveway and a sign offering lemonade for $2.
“We just wanted to make some money to buy some fun games or something,” Joshua told The Epoch Times.
Only about an hour into their lemonade selling, though, the suspect pulled up in his silver car and pulled a fast one, as footage from the Caldwell household security cameras appears to show.
The kids got a close-up look at the man, though Rebecca says she doesn’t pay much attention to the way her customers look.
He was wearing “a hat, a yellow hat,” Joshua said.
Rebecca describes him as medium-sized, looking about 30, with a goatee and possibly a buzzcut. “But I couldn’t really tell because he had a hat on,” she said.
Annetta Caldwell, the kids’ mom, rang the police and checked the security footage. It showed the suspect driving by several times, apparently waiting, she says, until she was inside the house before stopping by and making off with the money.
Police canvassed the area. Caldwell announced the brazen robbery on the neighborhood app: Nextdoor. “If you see this guy, let us know or the police know,” she posted. Although she learned that a suspect was eventually tracked down, she says it was the response from people that mended the injustice.
Who knew this simple post online would spark a community-wide gathering in support of the victims of the lemonade stand bandit?
What happened next was heartening.
The post “started blowing up,” Caldwell said. “Everybody started commenting. They tagged our local news station, who started to advertise our next lemonade stand the following Saturday.”
When the big day arrived, her video cameras recorded hundreds of people thronging to her front yard to buy lemonade and show support.
An unlikely group of supporters also appeared at the Caldwell house to tell them they’ve got their backs: a gnarly bunch of motorcyclists from a local bike club.
“There must have been over 120 that showed up,” Caldwell said. One biker informed her that “when he heard what happened he just felt like he had to do something, and he told his friends.”
The club member expected only about ten of his biker buddies to show up, but a huge group arrived from all over the area. Caldwell says that though she has friends who ride motorcycles and knows “a lot of them are pretty good,” she was still blown away by how kindhearted this group was.
“They were amazing,“ she said, adding that they were part of a 757 motorcycle club. ”They were super friendly, really wanted to bless the kids, and there’s a softness to them I wasn’t expecting.”
There were also “tons” of non-biker people who showed up to cool off with cups of lemonade and refill the kids’ cache to make up for the theft.
“A bicycle group showed up—about 30 of them,“ Caldwell said. ”City council showed up. Five different fire department trucks showed up, and then I don’t know how many ambulances, and then several police departments.”
She guesses 650 people flocked in for drinks. She had expected a large crowd and had stockpiled gallons of lemonade, but ran out anyway.
“I served at least 500 cups,” she said.
While some dipped into the drink, others simply donated cash. Checks even came in from as far afield as Texas, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, the mom says, and have continued to come since.
The money reached a sum of over $6,000, Caldwell says, adding that some of it will go toward supporting their eldest daughter, Sarah, 20, with her missionary work.
But some cash will undoubtedly go toward letting the kids just be kids.
Josh announced to The Epoch Times his intention to “buy a four-wheeler,” a quad for off-roading in his backyard.
Caldwell says they have “lived here eight years, and it’s a really, really good neighborhood” and the neighbors “never heard of anything like that happening here.”
Then she added: “Watching everyone come and support our family, even from outside of the community, made me feel very, very happy.”
