When Life Gives You Lemons

How a family tradition started by Erin and Bobby Yeager has raised more than $1,200 for Good Grief and created a ripple of generosity that keeps on going and growing.

In the summer of 2021, Caleigh, Shannon, and Molly Yeager were 8, 7, and 5 years old—and, like a lot of kids, they wanted to have a lemonade stand.

Their parents, Erin and Bobby, saw an opportunity. They regularly supported charitable organizations and wanted their daughters to understand that doing something fun could also be a way to help others. So that summer, the girls poured their first cups of lemonade for a cause.

They didn’t know then how much the tradition would eventually come to mean.

After Bobby died, Erin and the girls found their way to Good Grief. As the family became part of the Good Grief community, Erin explained to the girls that Good Grief relies on the generosity of donors to provide its programs. The girls knew they wanted their lemonade stand to help support an organization that had given so much to their family.

What began as a lesson in generosity from their parents became a tradition connecting giving back, their Good Grief community, and memories of their dad.

A Place to Belong

For the Yeagers, Good Grief has become much more than a place they go for Nights of Support.

“Good Grief means having a safe place when not everything feels safe,” Erin said. “It means being accepted and feeling seen, heard and understood in an environment that is welcoming, warm and nonjudgmental. It’s a sense of belonging even when feeling isolated.”

Each of the girls has her own way of describing what that community means.

For Molly, Good Grief means “feeling like I’m not the only person that has gone through the same thing as me and is grieving a parent.”

For Shannon, it means “knowing that other people have lost someone that meant something to them and then getting to become friends with others who have lost someone.”

And Caleigh describes a place where grief, friendship, memories, and simply being a kid can all exist together.

“Good Grief means a place where I go to be with other kids like me and we can talk over hot chocolate, old memories, and spill all of the tea,” she said. “Lots of competitive games between my friends and I too.”

Erin and the girls look forward to their Nights of Support and have formed friendships and bonds within the Good Grief community. That sense of connection is part of what motivates them to help make the same experience possible for other families.

A Summer Tradition That Keeps Growing

Every summer, the lemonade stand brings together family, friends, neighbors, and community members.

The girls try to beat the previous year’s fundraising total. Extra chairs come out as people stop by and stay awhile. Friends and family visit, and there is usually someone who sticks around to help greet the next customers.

In fact, the girls enjoy it so much that they regularly ask Erin if they can hold more than one stand each year.

Everyone has a favorite part: 

Molly likes pouring the lemonade. 

Shannon’s answer is simple: “Everything.” 

Caleigh loves doing it with her sisters, family, and neighbor and meeting people who live in their community. But for Caleigh, continuing the tradition also carries a connection to Bobby.

“The memory of starting it for charity with my dad,” she said. “Now I do it for him and to keep his memory and that first year’s memory alive.”

A Ripple of Generosity

Over the years, all of those cups of lemonade have added up.

Since 2022, the Yeager girls have raised $1,231 for Good Grief, helping support programs for other grieving children and families.

Their generosity doesn’t stop with Good Grief. In several years, they have chosen to share their proceeds with other organizations that have supported their family. What they received from others continues to ripple outward as they find their own ways to give back.

And the impact Erin hopes the tradition will have goes beyond the dollars raised.

“There’s no end in sight to our lemonade stand,” she said. “Hopefully each year we encourage even just one more family to do something similar to give back.”

A tradition that began with Erin and Bobby teaching three little girls that they could have fun while doing something good has become something much bigger: a way to remember, to give back, and perhaps to inspire someone else to do the same.

About Good Grief, Inc.

Good Grief is a non-profit organization whose mission is to build resilience in children, strengthen families, and empower communities to grow from loss and adversity. With centers in Princeton and Morristown, New Jersey, Good Grief provides free, open-ended support to children, teens, and young adults after the death of a parent or sibling. Through school and community programs across the country, Good Grief helps children and their communities build resilience to overcome loss and adversity.