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Kids run the booths at two Front Range markets this month

Pricing a product. Pitching a stranger. Making change and counting the take at the end of the night. It is the kind of thing that rattles plenty of adults, and this month Colorado kids will line up to do it on purpose. Two Front Range markets give them the chance. The first runs Friday, Aug. 14, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Piney Creek Hollow Park on South Tower Road in Centennial. A second follows Saturday, Aug. 22, from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock, set up next to the Castle Rock Farmers Market. Both are open to young vendors ages 5 to 17. They are run by Kids Markets, the program formerly known as the Children's Entrepreneur Market. The pitch is simple. Kids build a real business and sell real products for real money at a local event. How a market day works The adults handle the venue, the setup rules, and the crowd. The kids handle everything else. They decide what to sell. They build their inventory. They run the booth, set prices, talk to customers, and count their earnings at the end. A parent can help carry a wagon, but the sale belongs to the child. The Centennial event leans into the end-of-summer feel. Organizers expect around 3,700 shoppers on the grass, and the night closes with a drone show at sunset. Canopies have to come down by 8:30 p.m. so families can watch. Castle Rock is smaller and earlier, a morning market on a dirt lot beside the farmers market, with about 500 patrons expected. A booth runs $25. The first market of the year comes with a free book and a t-shirt, handed over at check-in, and extra shirts are $10. Under the market's rules, there are no refunds, and a spot can be given to a friend but not moved to a different market. Where the program came from The markets started in Utah in 2017. They grew out of a specific fight. Libertas Utah had pushed the country's first "Lemonade Stand Law," written after news stories of kids being shut down for selling without a business license or a food handler's permit. The first markets sold out in Utah for five years straight. Then the program went national. Six states in 2023. Nearly 20 more in 2024. By last year it counted 26 states and was aiming for a presence in every one. Connor Boyack founded the parent organization, the Libertas Network. He is also the creator of the Tuttle Twins children's book series. The markets are the network's family-education side, and the group is open about the goal behind them. It describes the market as the first step in what it calls a "Pyramid of Impact," a way to introduce families to the ideas of a free society through hands-on experience rather than a lecture. In late 2023 the program won the Gregor G. Peterson Prize in venture philanthropy, a $250,000 award spread over three years. It was chosen from dozens of nominees. Why parents keep signing kids up The skills are the draw. A child who runs a booth learns pricing, marketing, customer service, and product development in an afternoon, and learns them because the profit is real and so is the risk of a slow day. There is also a low bar to entry. A five-year-old can start with a folding table and a batch of something homemade. A teenager can test a real product on a real crowd. Friends can team up in one booth too, as many as eight kids to a space, though the market recommends no more than four. Colorado families have other options in the same vein. The Acton Children's Business Fair runs a similar one-day model for ages 6 to 17, with booth fees set by each local host, and Denver's Young Americans center hosts its own youth marketplace. The Front Range has become a busy place to be a young vendor. Kids Markets is filling that calendar quickly. Beyond the two August dates, the program has markets across the metro through late summer, from Colorado Springs in late August to Streets at Southglenn, Fountain, Thornton, and Parker in September. For the kids in Centennial on Friday night, though, the map counts for less than the table in front of them. The drone show starts after the canopies come down. And somewhere in between, a handful of young Coloradans will find out what it feels like to make their first sale.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

Pricing a product. Pitching a stranger. Making change and counting the take at the end of the night. It is the kind of thing that rattles plenty of adults, and this month Colorado kids will line up to do it on purpose.

Two Front Range markets give them the chance. The first runs Friday, Aug. 14, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Piney Creek Hollow Park on South Tower Road in Centennial. A second follows Saturday, Aug. 22, from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock, set up next to the Castle Rock Farmers Market. Both are open to young vendors ages 5 to 17.

They are run by Kids Markets, the program formerly known as the Children’s Entrepreneur Market. The pitch is simple. Kids build a real business and sell real products for real money at a local event.

How a market day works

The adults handle the venue, the setup rules, and the crowd. The kids handle everything else.

They decide what to sell. They build their inventory. They run the booth, set prices, talk to customers, and count their earnings at the end. A parent can help carry a wagon, but the sale belongs to the child.

The Centennial event leans into the end-of-summer feel. Organizers expect around 3,700 shoppers on the grass, and the night closes with a drone show at sunset. Canopies have to come down by 8:30 p.m. so families can watch. Castle Rock is smaller and earlier, a morning market on a dirt lot beside the farmers market, with about 500 patrons expected.

A booth runs $25. The first market of the year comes with a free book and a t-shirt, handed over at check-in, and extra shirts are $10. Under the market’s rules, there are no refunds, and a spot can be given to a friend but not moved to a different market.

Where the program came from

The markets started in Utah in 2017. They grew out of a specific fight. Libertas Utah had pushed the country’s first “Lemonade Stand Law,” written after news stories of kids being shut down for selling without a business license or a food handler’s permit.

The first markets sold out in Utah for five years straight. Then the program went national. Six states in 2023. Nearly 20 more in 2024. By last year it counted 26 states and was aiming for a presence in every one.

Connor Boyack founded the parent organization, the Libertas Network. He is also the creator of the Tuttle Twins children’s book series. The markets are the network’s family-education side, and the group is open about the goal behind them. It describes the market as the first step in what it calls a “Pyramid of Impact,” a way to introduce families to the ideas of a free society through hands-on experience rather than a lecture.

In late 2023 the program won the Gregor G. Peterson Prize in venture philanthropy, a $250,000 award spread over three years. It was chosen from dozens of nominees.

Why parents keep signing kids up

The skills are the draw. A child who runs a booth learns pricing, marketing, customer service, and product development in an afternoon, and learns them because the profit is real and so is the risk of a slow day.

There is also a low bar to entry. A five-year-old can start with a folding table and a batch of something homemade. A teenager can test a real product on a real crowd. Friends can team up in one booth too, as many as eight kids to a space, though the market recommends no more than four.

Colorado families have other options in the same vein. The Acton Children’s Business Fair runs a similar one-day model for ages 6 to 17, with booth fees set by each local host, and Denver’s Young Americans center hosts its own youth marketplace. The Front Range has become a busy place to be a young vendor.

Kids Markets is filling that calendar quickly. Beyond the two August dates, the program has markets across the metro through late summer, from Colorado Springs in late August to Streets at Southglenn, Fountain, Thornton, and Parker in September.

For the kids in Centennial on Friday night, though, the map counts for less than the table in front of them. The drone show starts after the canopies come down. And somewhere in between, a handful of young Coloradans will find out what it feels like to make their first sale.