{"id":293436,"date":"2026-07-11T21:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T21:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/293436\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T21:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T21:31:10","slug":"nyc-boy-earns-nearly-200-at-lemonade-stand-for-ronaldo-world-cup-lego-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/293436\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC boy earns nearly $200 at lemonade stand for Ronaldo World Cup LEGO set"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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 \u2014 and raked in six times more than he needed.<\/p>\n<p>Mason Whittaker, 5, spotted a limited-edition, $80 Cristiano Ronaldo LEGO set on Amazon \u2014 part of the toy giant\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/03\/shopping\/the-new-world-cup-trophy-lego-set-is-now-available-to-preorder\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FIFA World Cup collection<\/a> \u2014 and had to have it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s absolutely obsessed,\u201d his mom Heather Doll told The Post. \u201cI mean, he cried when <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/06\/sports\/cristiano-ronaldos-world-cup-career-ends-as-spain-knocks-out-portugal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Portugal lost<\/a> because Ronaldo is his favorite player.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mason Whittaker ran a lemonade stand to purchase a Cristiano Ronaldo LEGO set. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n<p>Mason and his friends <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/02\/us-news\/young-brothers-fought-to-pass-law-to-get-rid-of-michigans-lemonade-stand-fee-for-minors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">manned the stand<\/a> \u2014 decorated with soccer stickers and a banner \u2014 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.<\/p>\n<p>His mom chuckled as she recalled how her son handled the masses.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOkay, so you guys are all crowding me now, and that means you need to form a line!\u201d Mason shouted.<\/p>\n<p>He closed shop for the day after just two hours \u2014 earning a whopping $186 in cash and Venmo payments between sales and tips.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople would be like, \u2018And a little extra for you,\u2019\u201d Doll said. \u201cI was like, \u2018What are we gonna do with all of this?&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Customers showered Whittaker with cash and Venmo tips.  Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Whittaker chose to spend his hard-earned money on a $30 LEGO set instead of the $80 one he originally saw. LEGO<\/p>\n<p>And Mason is already plotting his next business endeavor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, he wants to do it again. He wants to do it today, tomorrow \u2014 I\u2019m like that\u2019s a lot of work,\u201d Doll said. \u201cSo I\u2019m thinking maybe we\u2019ll do one in the fall and it can be football-themed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Ronaldo-obsessed East Village boy wanted a LEGO set of his soccer hero so badly he set up&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[109885,7624,11015,20183,57,9,56,63,65,64,9558,107634,58,23681,33009],"class_list":["post-293436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-east-village","tag-fifa","tag-lego","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-portugal","tag-ronaldo","tag-us-news","tag-us-soccer","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}