Miami Beach city officials reportedly told a 10-year-old girl who wanted to sell cookies and drinks in her front yard to raise money for tsunami victims that she could not hold the fundraiser because they could not grant her an occupational license. Carolyn Lipsick feels especially terrible for the children who can't find their parents after a tsunami claimed 140,000 lives in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and other areas in South Asia. "I feel bad for them," said Carolyn Lipsick, 10, of the people affected by December's devastating tsunami. "Some children have no clothes, no food, no water and no shoes and most important, that I want to help them, they can't find their parents."When Lipsick's fourth-grade teacher at Lehrman Community Day School told students to think of an act of kindness for the victims, Lipsick went to her computer, did some research and decided she could help by selling her mother's cookies, muffins and drinks in her front yard. "I could raise money and help the children. And eventually it would be really good," Lipsick said.
But Lipsick's mother, Desiree Lipsick, said the city of Miami Beach told her occupational licenses could not be granted for such yard sales. "I called the city of Miami Beach and they said, 'Absolutely not. We cannot issue you a license to have a lemonade stand, a coffee stand, a fruit stand -- any kind of stand,'" Desiree said. "I felt like I was going to get all mad and steamy because sometimes that happens to me," Carolyn said.
The Lipsicks didn't know that they would have been able to sell food if they got a permit for a garage sale, but apparently no one informed them of that possibility. Instead, the mother and daughter contacted the Local 10 Problem Solvers. Within hours, the Problem Solvers learned the Miami Beach Jewish Community Center offered to help by allowing a fundraiser in its Pine Tree Drive parking lot.
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