Local Tarboro Lemonade Shop Welcomes All

For people with disabilities, being turned away at restaurants and work opportunities isn’t uncommon and can come with harsh words.

“I’m sorry, but you are bothering our other customers and need to leave.” “This job is not equipped to accommodate your special needs.” “You’re being weird, and you need to stop.”

A lack of awareness or exposure to people with disabilities can make it difficult to know how to treat others who might have special needs. However, one locally-owned business in Tarboro is trying to make an impact with a different approach.

The idea was planted when Serenity Dickens, who has a condition called spina bifida, noticed she was sometimes turned away because of her disability. which she uses a walker for. She told her mother, Pamela Peterson-Dickens, that she wanted to open a restaurant where kids with special needs could feel completely welcome.

“I felt a lot of experiences where I wasn’t completely comfortable, where special needs weren’t completely accommodated,” she said. “So Sweet P’s and Summer Special is just a brand and company that, I feel like, will be that place for special needs kids to come and feel like they’re welcome no matter what.”

When she was about nine, she got to see that dream become a reality.

“Sweet P’s Galaxy Lemonade was birthed during the pandemic,” said Serenity’s mother, the lemonade shop’s owner Pamela Peterson-Dickens.

Peterson-Dickens worked as a hairstylist, but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, her job shut down. She started searching for other ways to make money.

“And I’ve always done lemonade for all the family events,” she said.

After ordering some things online, Peterson-Dickens started experimenting and having her family try the lemonade variations. They loved it. Once she found opportunities to sell it, the business took off from there.

“In my third event, like in four hours, we made over $700,” said Peterson-Dickens. “So I was just like, OK, we might be on to something, you know?”

Her husband, David Dickens, is a gospel singer, which opened the door for them to provide refreshments for church events. They sold at markets and other places as well, progressing from a tent to a trailer as time went on. Now, they have expanded the business with a second trailer and a building in Tarboro.

In addition to providing cool refreshments, Peterson-Dickens said that the business aims to bring awareness about children with special needs.

“So we started to bring in more kids or adults, anyone that has a disability,” she said. “They’re welcome to work with us, because it’s teaching social skills and also entrepreneurship.”

When the business began, the family already had a nonprofit organization established called Help Make a Difference Outreach, through which they created aptly named Project Serenity. The aim of Project Serenity is to provide support and fun activities for differently-abled children.

And when asked about the lemonade shop, Serenity gave her enthusiastic support.

“I really love that we used the Sweet P’s Galaxy lemonade to let special needs kids work, so that they get that opportunity,” said Serenity, who is now 15 years old. “Because not a lot of kids or special needs kids feel that they will have someplace to go.”

Jenny Hinnant, a regular customer and mayor pro tem of the nearby town of Conetoe, said, “When [Pam] started telling me about her vision, I was like, ‘Oh man, that’s awesome.’”

Hinnant has been drinking Sweet P’s from the very beginning, and she said the people involved are great and the lemonade is just as high quality.

“There is not one flavor that I have not tried,” she said. “They all good.”

Peterson-Dickens says that the next step for the business is to hopefully get a new trailer with enough room for employees who use mobility aids. She’s interested in getting their brand into stores. Additionally, she herself has heart failure and expressed a wish for more customers to come to the physical building so that she doesn’t have to be out in the heat.

For Serenity Dickens, her goals extend beyond getting the lemonade shop’s products in stores. She hopes that someday Sweet P’s Galaxy Lemonade can carry its message of acceptance and accommodation all across America.

“I plan to have multiple restaurants around the states,” she said, “just so that everybody will have that one place where they say, ‘Oh, that’s the place where everybody can go to feel comfortable.”