Buy Lemonade, Help The Federal Government Out

It's heartwarming -- an 11-year-old Girl Scout from Houston opening a lemonade stand to help victims of Ike.

Sunkist, which has a whole PR effort devoted to getting these lemonade-stand-for-a-cause stories out, was enraptured with Rama Imad and her friends: "They will be raising money for FEMA, in order to contribute to Hurricane Ike relief throughout Texas," a press release said.

Say what now? FEMA and the federal government are so cash-strapped they're taking donations from kids running lemonade stands?

Market meltdown, trillion-dollar deficit, what hast thou wrought?

We checked, and it turns out the proceeds will not go to FEMA.

"She originally wanted them to go to FEMA because they had come to her street when her family was affected by the storm," Sunkist spokeswoman Deanna Talamantez tells Hair Balls. "But we've found that they don't take donations, so the money will instead be going to the Red Cross."

Yeah, but what about the deficit?

Anyway, feel free to give to some non-governmental entity by buying lemonade from 9 am til noon this Saturday at the Food Town at 10902 Scarsdale.

FEMA will just have to get by on its own, we guess.

-- Richard Connelly

Original here