Like most kids, the Larson boys have done their share of door-to-door selling for various fund-raisers.
Through the years, they’ve sold Boy Scout popcorn, sub sandwiches for a church group and pledges for school math-a-thons.
Most of the time, these activities have been spaced out. This year, however, my boys have turned into professional beggars.
In the past two months, Alex and Luke have sold cookie dough and taken Avon orders to fund their fares for a school trip to Washington, D.C., Luke and Aaron have sold Boy Scout popcorn for their troop and pack and Alex has taken orders from a gift catalog for an eighth-grade trip to Worlds of Fun at the end of the school year.
So far this year, Aaron seems to be the most successful of our sellers. He hit the streets of Americus on the first day of popcorn sales. Because of his busy social schedule, it was 4 p.m. before we got started. He put in a good two hours and it was time to think about winding down on a school night.
“Ready to go home?” I asked Aaron.
He quickly totaled the half-page of orders he had.
“Nope,” he said. “I wanna keep going.”
Three streets and an hour later, I repeated my question.
“I want to go to Emporia,” he said.
A teacher in Americus had pointed us to her parents and their quiet street in town.
“They don’t have any boys living on that street,” she assured us.
So we headed to Emporia where Aaron made the sale.
By then it was dark and I drew the line when he said he wanted to keep going. But he held me to my promise to bring him back. We devoted a weeknight a few days later to hitting the quiet street.
Our time to sell waned in the next week and the time came to total his orders. He knew he hadn’t hit his goal of $1,250 in sales to qualify for an MP3 player. He was fine with that. Then, I told him he was $150 away from his goal — the equivalent of 10 boxes of microwave popcorn.
His eyes lit up and he agreed to take an assortment of popcorn when we headed out for a weekend at his grandparents house. The guests at the annual fish fry were no match for a born salesman with popcorn ready to deliver.
Aaron made his goal and showed me the benefits of fund-raisers for children. Aaron learned to set his goal then work hard to make it happen — a good lesson for life.