COTTAGE GROVE, Minn. — There are few things better to beat the summer heat than a lemonade stand.
"The lemonade is 75 cents," Brady Steffes said, standing in front of the stand he and his friends started in their neighborhood in Cottage Grove.
For Steffes and his friends, business has been booming – and if you ask them, this stand isn't about making money for themselves.
"I thought it would be like maybe one, two hundred bucks," he said. "Our goal was $250 at the start."
It's about helping others – especially their neighbors.
"Just a few dollars here and a few dollars there can have a really big impact," Steffes said.
The reason for their stand happens to live two doors down – Lionel Njitor and his family are now picking up their lives after a fire Sunday destroyed their home.
"She was like whoa, smoke is kind of, you know, there's a fire in the garage," Njitor said, talking about the text he got from his wife on Sunday.
Seeing that was hard for the neighborhood kids – so they brainstormed, and approached Njitor with an idea.
"I was speechless when they came up to me, and they said this is what we want to do for you," he said. "I kinda, like, was really running out of words. I was like, just, you guys are gonna make me cry."
In just a day and a half, the kids have raised much more than what they expected to.
"Going way over, some people are paying $100 just for that lemonade," Steffes said. "And we raised about $4,000."
"Few people even left $100 tips, whole neighborhood pitched in to help," Steffes added.
It's a long road to get back on their feet for Njitor and his family, but with neighbors like this – that's much easier.
"I mean, I can't thank them enough for what they've done so far," Njitor said.
A GoFundMe for the Njitor family can be found by clicking here.