Disney-Loving Child’s Fundraising Campaign Is Threatened Due to Child Labor

It’s no secret that Disney World vacations have gotten more and more expensive (not to mention “insanely” difficult to plan) in recent years, and that many Disney fans have to consciously save up for their Disney Park days.

According to The Mirror, one eight-year-old boy in Alabama was trying to save up for a Disney trip by selling lemonade at his lemonade stand, and recently met with an upsetting obstacle!

“Desperate” For a Disney Vacation

The boy, named Cam, had started his lemonade stand under the tutelage of his parent, Cristal Johnson.

Things were going well with the lemonade stand, and Cam was optimistically hoping that the profits would be able to pay for a Walt Disney World Resort vacation because “he was desperate to go to Walt Disney World.”

Sorcerer’s Apprentices?

Cam’s mother Cristal invited some other children into the lemonade stand business in the form of brief apprenticeships, saying that she “was trying to teach them exactly what [she’s]  trying to teach [her] son…how to handle money [and] customer service skills.”

“Teach the little boys how to shake hands correctly. And just little things like that. That’s all I was trying to accomplish,” Cristal Johnson added in an interview with Fox & Friends First.

The Disney-loving duo was unfortunately “contacted by the Alabama Labor Department over a complaint that the lemonade stand violated child labour laws,” however, and they had to close down their tiny business.

Cristal was reportedly “shocked and saddened” after learning that someone had reported her and her son’s lemonade stand, and Cam was equally upset.

Penalties for Lemonade Stand Pennies

“The first thing that comes to mind is who could dislike us that much to go that far? And I just have no idea,” Cristal said mournfully. “But I’m sure that whoever did it is pretty regretful right about now.”

Alabama Department of Labor spokesperson Tara Hutchison did say that the duo “faced no penalties and was not threatened with any penalties,” clarifying that they had simply received “a call explaining how the apprenticeship could run afoul of the state’s protections for minors.”

Do you think that running a lemonade stand to save up for a Disney trip is admirable (even if it might not make nearly enough of a profit to pay for a Disney World vacation these days), and do you think that Cam’s lemonade stand should not have been reported?