BEVERLY — A group of Girl Scouts will have a lemonade stand on Sunday and donate the proceeds to another lemonade stand.
Troop 20075, which has Scouts from Beverly, Mount Greenwood and Morgan Park, will be at the Beverly Farmers Market from 7 a.m.-1 p.m. The weekly vendors fair is held in the commuter parking lot on the southeast corner of 95th Street and Longwood Drive.
Proceeds from the sale of lemonade will be donated to the Molly Browne Gallagher Lemonade Stand. Molly, 7, and her mother, Margie Browne Gallagher, will also be on hand to help pour drinks and meet with friends.
Molly's siblings — Bridget, 12, Patrick, 11, and Danny, 9 — started the first Molly Browne Gallagher Lemonade Stand in 2009. They wanted to do something special to celebrate their little sister's first birthday.
Molly Browne Gallagher was born with Down syndrome. The family opted to give the proceeds from the sale of lemonade along with a tray of brownies and some freeze pops to Misericordia, a Chicago community for persons with mild to profound developmental disabilities.
While the charity is near to the family's heart, it is in no way tied to Molly's care, Margie Browne Gallagher said.
"We decided we wanted to pick a charity to send the money to — whether it was $7 or whatever," Gallagher said on Thursday.
The family ended up raising $250. News of the lemonade stand quickly spread. The next year, the family that lived across the street from Saint John Fisher School in West Beverly raised $3,500.
Over the course of the event, raffles have been added to lemonade stand, along with a sweets table, craft vendor area and more. The modest fundraiser quickly outgrew the family's driveway and was moved to the nearby church courtyard.
Support for the fundraiser snowballed, and the once-modest lemonade stand has raised more than $50,000 raised for Misericordia since Molly's first birthday.
"Word just grew and grew. You know Beverly," Gallagher said.
The Gallagher family moved six weeks ago to 12640 Wisteria Court in Palos Park. The family is hoping to recreate the event in the south suburbs and will host their lemonade stand at their new home from noon-2 p.m. Aug. 16.
Gallagher hopes to use the farmers market to reach out to supporters on the Southwest Side who helped make her children's lemonade stand into an annual event.
Besides celebrating Molly, the 2015 lemonade stand will be dedicated to the memory of Lulu Schultz. The daughter of Doug and Susie McNicholas Schultz of Morgan Park was alive for only a few short days before she died in July 2012.
As if the lemonade stand weren't enough, the farmers market will also have a particularly artistic flare this week thanks to the Beverly Area Arts Alliance.
The group responsible for the upcoming Beverly Art Walk on Oct. 3 will bring live music to the farmers market along with several area artisans showcasing their work. Here's a few of the artists who will have their work on display:
• Judie Anderson of Beverly will be among the local artists at the farmers market. She plans to paint scenes from the market using watercolors from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday.
• Jane Drynan, the former owner of Toadstool Studios in Beverly, is moving to Texas on Aug. 15. She'll be selling many of the paintings she created as part of her art classes at the farmers market — some for as little as $2.
• Katie Uza of Katesplosion will also be at the market with her hand-painted signs on reclaimed wood as well as acrylic paintings on canvas and original charcoal drawings.
• Ellen & Leslie Jenner are the mother-daughter team behind Jennerations. Their studio creates a variety of items using many different and often repurposed materials.
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