The Midway girls whose lemonade stand was shut down by the police two weeks ago are riding out a tide of attention.

“I’m surprised that it went this far,” said Kasity Dixon, 14.

On July 6, Kasity, her 10-year-old sister, Skylar Roberts, and their cousin, Tiffany Cassin, were told to shut down their front-yard lemonade stand after two days in business. The girls had been trying to earn money for a trip to Splash in the Boro Waterpark in Statesboro.

The story was first reported in the Coastal Courier of Hinesville. Last week, Savannah ABC affiliate WJCL picked up the story, and it has since been flung into the national media spotlight with footage of the girls splashed across CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.
And the girls’ mother, Amy Roberts, said she would tell her story again.

“My whole thing with even telling my story in the Coastal Courier was just to see other people in the area’s opinions. I had no idea that it was going to go this far – none,” she said.

Since the story landed on TV screens, the girls have received an outpouring of support, with donors contacting both the Coastal Courier and WJCL hoping to help the girls get to Splash in the Boro.

“I can’t even count the amount of comments and responses,” Roberts said.

The family has accepted a total of eight tickets to the water park, four from WOAH 106.3-FM and four from WJCL. Another donor offered the girls a weekend stay at Wilderness at the Smokies, an indoor/outdoor water park resort in Sevierville, Tenn.

Roberts has emphasized in interviews that she wanted to teach the girls how to earn their money and is unsure yet whether she will accept the donation, she said.

Another business, Calypso Lemonade, has offered to supply the girls with a stock of lemonade to sell and a week’s worth of merchant licenses, according to Chris Selinger, area manager for the Southeast.

“We’re a small, Midwestern-based company, and this is what America’s about – it’s people helping people,” he said. “What better way to come into the Savannah market than with these girls as ambassadors for our product?”

One thing Roberts knows is that she does not want to accept cash, she said. She’s considering telling insistent donors to share their money with the Liberty Humane Shelter instead.

Read more in the July 20 edition of the News.