Rock Hill 7-year-old sells lemonade to help with 'troubles' | The Herald

Her name is Gracie Ramsey - 7 years old, missing a front tooth - and she spent all afternoon Tuesday pitching "ice-cold raspberry lemonade, 5 cents," to all that passed by her grandparents' home on Rock Hill's Spruce Street.

Her goal: "I want to help the sick animals in the oil spill, for Haiti, and for people with troubles."

So Gracie pulled out her Tinkerbell table and her Tinkerbell chair and wrote up signs on little sheets of paper, then an old file folder. She spelled raspberry "rasbarry," but nobody cared.

Her grandmother, Gaydawn Scarborough, made the lemonade and Gracie proceeded to change the sweating, hurried, 95-degree world in front of 312 S. Spruce St. - one nickel at a time.

Cars stopped or didn't. Gracie waved to them all. She held up her sign, upside down, and flashed her one-front-tooth smile that stopped traffic.

She gave her spiel about Haiti and said, repeatedly, "One cup is 5 cents and two cups are 10 cents and three cups are...," She paused and added up in her head that gets great grades. "...15 cents and four cups are 20 cents."

"The lady across the street said it was so good, she gave a dollar," said Gracie. That was Tonia Hall.

A driver, Yolanda Middleton, stopped and got a cup and gave all her change.

"Beautiful," said Middleton.

A guy named Kevin Eason stopped and spent all his change.

"Kids with big hearts are the best," he declared.

Another neighbor, Terry Farquhar, walked over and read the sign that said, "5cents."

"We can do better than that," Farquhar said, and he dropped a bunch of change in Gracie's hand.

"The birds that are oily and the fish that are sick, and the turtles and clams and stuff that lives in the water - maybe they won't be so sick now," said Gracie.

Gracie's 4-year-old sister, Kiley, came home and Gracie did what older sisters have done forever - she put Kiley to work.

"She's just a little kid," said Gracie of her sister. "She can pour lemonade, but she can't count. I can count."

Spruce Street is a little residential road just east of Rock Hill's downtown. It gets no big, huge traffic. It is a blue-collar road of small houses filled with black and white and Hispanic people who work hard.

And those people, some of them, stopped on this 95-degree day for this little girl in the hot sun on the side of the road, saving the birds and fishes and Haitians and people with troubles.

One lady gave a dime for two cups and she dropped a quarter in the grass.

"Ma'am, you dropped your money," said the ever-honest Gracie.

The woman pocketed the quarter and left.

"Thank you!" called out Gracie for that dime she just made to help others - the only cups she sold for face value all day - and she meant that thank-you with all her 7-year-old heart.

"I told her it was 5 cents, she paid me a dime for two cups," Gracie said. "OK by me."

In a row, three cars did U-turns and stopped for what was clearly the best raspberry lemonade ever made by a granny for a girl with one front tooth named Gracie.

In one car, Patsy Mack and Charles Rhinehart stopped and gave a handful of change.

"The heart of a child will save us all," Mack said. "God bless you, honey."

And right at the end of the afternoon, after Gracie spent her day, a truck stopped in the middle of the street. A big tractor that said "Corey Belton Trucking" on the white door in blue letters.

From the cab stepped Corey Belton, 36 years old. Worked hard for his money Tuesday, and he let Gracie give her whole sales pitch with his big truck blocking the road.

"I only want one cup of lemonade," Belton told Gracie, "but I would like to give you $5 for trying so hard."

Then she thanked him, and Belton got in his truck, blew that loud truck horn that is blown by a string that truckers have and kids such as Gracie and Kiley Ramsey sure love, and he drove off drinking his raspberry lemonade.

The lemonade was gone by 4o'clock. Gracie had been out there all afternoon.

Gracie and her sister and her grandfather, Kavin Scarborough, tallied the day's work - $22.35 - as Gracie made plans to be out there again today with her raspberry lemonade.

"I did it for the fishes in the oil spill, so they don't stay sick and can have clean water to swim in," said Gracie. "And for Haiti. And the people who have troubles."

Gracie, you did it for all of us.

Want some lemonade?

Gracie Ramsey will be selling her granny's "rasbarry" lemonade again today at 312 S. Spruce St. in Rock Hill - still only 5 cents.