A Ronaldo-obsessed East Village boy wanted a LEGO set of his soccer hero so badly he set up a lemonade stand to earn it — and raked in six times more than he needed.
Mason Whittaker, 5, spotted a limited-edition, $80 Cristiano Ronaldo LEGO set on Amazon — part of the toy giant’s FIFA World Cup collection — and had to have it.
“He’s absolutely obsessed,” his mom Heather Doll told The Post. “I mean, he cried when Portugal lost because Ronaldo is his favorite player.”
But Doll explained to her son that if he wanted the LEGO replica of the legendary forward, he had to earn it. The mother-son duo figured a lemonade stand would do the trick.
Mason and his friends manned the stand — decorated with soccer stickers and a banner — on Wednesday on East 7th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenue outside their apartment building, as dozens of thirsty neighbors and pedestrians swarmed the small table for a cup of $2 lemonade.
His mom chuckled as she recalled how her son handled the masses.
“Okay, so you guys are all crowding me now, and that means you need to form a line!” Mason shouted.
He closed shop for the day after just two hours — earning a whopping $186 in cash and Venmo payments between sales and tips.
“People would be like, ‘And a little extra for you,’” Doll said. “I was like, ‘What are we gonna do with all of this?’”
At the LEGO store on 5th Avenue, Doll and Mason opted for a cheaper $30 Ronaldo and decided that the extra money will go toward thank-you gifts for the friends who helped.
And Mason is already plotting his next business endeavor.
“Oh, he wants to do it again. He wants to do it today, tomorrow — I’m like that’s a lot of work,” Doll said. “So I’m thinking maybe we’ll do one in the fall and it can be football-themed.”
Read the full article here
