What would you do with a week off?
For a pair of siblings aged five and seven in Singapore, the answer was to set up a pop-up stall in their neighbourhood selling one of their favourite drinks — Yeo’s Jelly Buddies — with the proceeds going to charity.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday (Sept 15), content creator northshoreloft, also known as Qing, shared that her husband had come up with the idea as the family decided not to travel overseas during the September holidays.
Her older son, who is in Primary 1, also tended to get bored “pretty easily” at home.
“We thought it’d be a fun way for them to learn a few things beyond the classroom too,” she added.
To kick off their little venture, the older sibling wrote a letter to Yeo’s — the company behind their favourite drink — to ask for a sponsorship.
In the handwritten note, he introduced himself as a seven-year-old living in Punggol and explained that he was setting up a “little stall” with his brother to sell snacks in the neighbourhood.
“We want to donate all the money we make to charity. Would you be able to sponsor us 100 packets of Jelly Buddies? Thank you for helping us!” he wrote.
Yeo’s replied shortly after, thanking the boy for reaching out and saying it “really enjoyed” receiving his letter, praising his handwriting.
“We absolutely love the idea behind this little project,” it continued, adding that it would be “happy to support” the neighbourhood stall.
With the beverage company onboard, the siblings started decorating their cardboard booth — which Qing bought for approximately $12.
In the video, the siblings can be seen painting the booth green and white, before adding the name “Jelly and Jolly” and cartoon portraits of themselves.
In a follow-up video on Thursday, Qing shared what went down on the day of the pop-up, saying that they had “no idea what to expect” as it was their first time doing this.
So how did it go?
At 5pm last Sunday, the family wheeled the booth on a trolley to a playground near their home, thinking there would be plenty of families with children around.
They were selling the jelly packets for $1 each.
Things however, got off to a quiet start.
The siblings were also shy initially, with the younger brother squatting to hide behind the booth when potential customers approached.
With business moving slowly, the family decided to pack up and look for a busier spot, moving the pop-up to a location near Coney Island.
This proved to be the right decision, as things began to pick up from there.
At one point, the younger sibling got bitten by red ants, though the family did not give up and simply shifted their booth to the opposite side of where they were.
As more customers approached the booth, the brothers slowly got the hang of running the stall and were seen comfortably attending to buyers themselves.
“So grateful to everyone who stopped by to buy and encourage the boys,” wrote Qing, as the video showed various groups of customers patronising the pop-up.
After nearly one-and-a-half hours, there were only eight packets of Jelly Buddies left to sell.
Then, at 6.45pm, a customer approached the boys and bought all the remaining packets.
“I’ll buy all so you can go for your dinner, okay?” he said.
In total, 120 packets of Jelly Buddies were sold within two hours, according to the video.
“The boys were so happy,” Qing said.
The mother later shared a screenshot showing that $126 had been donated to the Children’s Cancer Foundation.
“We’re so proud of these two for seeing it through,” she added.
AsiaOne has reached out to Qing for more information.
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carol.ong@asiaone.com
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