A 9-year-old’s lemonade stand took off — now, he’s using his profits to fund a mobile library for babies in the NICU that saved his own life

0At nine years old, Jhase Smith is already a business owner, and he’s using the money he earns from selling lemonade to help families facing some of the most difficult days of their lives.

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Jhase recently donated a mobile library cart to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Piedmont Hospital. The cart is stocked with books for parents to read to their babies while they receive care in the NICU.

The project grew out of Jhase’s own experience. He was born prematurely at about 24 weeks, weighing just one pound and nine ounces. He spent 91 days in the NICU. His mother, Nazjma Smith, told local news outlet WSOC-TV that the kindness of others helped her family navigate an “extremely scary” time.

Now, Jhase is paying that support forward.

“I was a NICU baby,” Jhase told WSOC-TV. “I was 24 weeks, and then someone helped my mom when she was healthy when I was a little baby. So we’re helping hospitals.”

His lemonade business, Jhase Made Lemonade, started when he was much younger. In 2022, when Jhase was just four years old, local television station WBTV reported that he was already selling lemonade and donating 20% of his monthly sales to NICUs. At the time, his business had already contributed thousands of dollars to hospitals and NICU programs.

“I like doing the lemonade because it’s cool and fun,” Jhase said at the time. “I like helping the babies.”

Jhase sells all kinds of lemonade, from traditional lemonade to strawberry, blueberry and peach. And his business has continued to grow as he has gotten older, allowing him to use his entrepreneurial efforts to support causes that are personal to him.

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The new mobile library isn’t simply about giving parents something to read while they wait. For families with babies in intensive care, reading can be one way to maintain a sense of connection during an overwhelming experience.

“Reading is important for brain development at all ages, and so even in the NICU it matters,” Amy Cornum, Director of Women’s Services told WSOC-TV. “And so we want to encourage that.”

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, reading with babies “stimulates optimal patterns of brain development,” establishing and strengthening neural connections that promote social-emotional development, as well as language and literacy skills, during the “critical period of early brain and child development.” Those skills “last a lifetime,” the research purports.

It can also “enhance parent-child relationships,” which is why experts encourage “language-rich exposure to books, pictures and the written word.”

For Jhase’s family, the project also represents a full-circle moment.

His mother remembers how much practical support made a difference when her son was fighting to survive — which she recalls as the “most difficult situation” in which she’d ever been. She said she was able to concentrate on Jhase because other people helped with some of the basic expenses, like food and gas, that came with having a baby in the hospital, which was about an hour away from her home.

”It was amazing,” she told WBTV in 2022. “We just want to help somebody else through support, resources … We’re able to turn the most tragic part of our lives to something that’s a miracle for someone else.”

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