Be One Person: Vivienne Harr at TEDxFiDiWomen

After seeing ​a photo​ of two enslaved boys, and learning that "slavery did not end with Abraham Lincoln," then 8-year-old Vivienne Harr said: "Compassion is not compassion without action. We need to do something."

So, like any young child, she went with "the only business experience I had": a lemonade stand. But, Vivienne had a bigger vision than doing it for one day. She wanted to raise $100,000. So, she "made a stand" at her lemonade stand for 365 days straight, rain or shine, to "end child slavery." The world stood with her.

On day #52, New York Times, Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof retweeted Vivienne, and her moment became a movement. The New York Times, Bloomberg TV, The BBC World News, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, Parenting Magazine, The New York Daily News, The Huffington Post, FOX, Yahoo News, MSN, AOL, Food & Wine, Town & Country, Real Simple—and media outlets across the country and around the world from Australia to Brazil to France to Hong Kong—have covered the Make a Stand movement. On day #173, Mayor Michael Bloomberg invited Vivienne to Times Square to sell her famous lemonade. It was there that she reached her goal—donating $101,320 to Not For Sale, a leading anti-slavery organization.

When her parents said: "You did it, honey. You're done," Vivienne said: "Is child slavery done? Then I am not done."

Vivienne continued her daily stand for a full 365 days, at which point she decided to bottle her organic, Fair Trade "lemon-aid"—becoming the first child in American history to bottle her lemonade-stand lemonade. She has won numerous awards for her work and is now an honorary member of the World Affairs Council.

Make a Stand became a new way of doing business: A for-profit Social Purpose Company striving to end child slavery in our lifetime. On November 12, 2013, The New York Times article "​In a Lemonade Stand, The Transformation of a Corporation​" positioned Vivienne's company as the poster child for social purpose companies in America. " If done right, [Make a Stand] could not just raise money to end child slavery, but perhaps create a role model for nonprofits and all types of businesses." Make a Stand Lemon-aid is now served in over 150 stores across the West Coast and as part of the foodservice programs at Apple, Twitter, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Salesforce, Netflix and Linkedin.​

The children's book she illustrated with her mother will be published in December, 2013. A feature length-documentary film (titled: #standwithme) about Vivienne's story will be released in theaters across America on February 1, 2014. Vivienne will also host a new network TV series called "Kid MissionPossible," which will air in ​​2014.​

Of their roughly 230 million users, Twitter gave Vivienne the honor of ​ringing the bell at their IPO​ in New York on November 7, 2013 because executives believed she is "symbolic of how Twitter can be used to change the world."

Miss Vivienne has decided to travel the world and continue to be a global voice against child slavery. "I want to end child slavery in my lifetime. I believe we can do it if we all stand together."

Vivienne Harr is 9 years old


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