MARYVILLE, Tenn — The price is right at Chaz's Lemonade and Produce Stand where a kind-hearted teen offers food, drink and smiles.
Chaz Tipton runs the roadside business at 2216 Big Springs Road in Maryville.
The 16-year-old listed his produce variety: "Cantaloupes, squash, radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, lettuce."
His little brother, Dallas, suggested Chaz start a lemonade stand to make money.
He's not making much money.
'The lemonade is a dollar and then the vegetables are whatever you can give," he said.
No price. Whatever you can give. He sacrifices a profit to help people in need.
"I like to help people," he said. "Some people they don't have enough money and they can at least have a drink and something to eat."
He helps those people get by and his whole family helps Chaz make the lemonade and set up Chaz's Lemonade and Produce Stand: CLAP.
He has an extremely rare movement disorder called Dystonia. It makes muscles violently contract and twist.
"My parents thought I had a stroke but I didn't. They took me to the ER and then they ran some tests and years later I met my friend Bailey and she has the same thing as I do," he said.
Bailey is Bailey Whitteaker.
"I thought I was the only one in East Tennessee that had this disease and then to find out there was a kid in my same county and they actually lives 5-minutes up the road at the time which was completely a God thing, she said.
Bailey is 8 years older than Chaz. She quickly befriended him.
"I told him that I would be here. That I was going to be the only person who really understand what he was going through," she said.
CLAP started last year. It's grown.
"I knew that this would be something he would want to do and this would be his purpose, just like he was mine," she said.
Bailey remembers the first time the police showed up.
"He thought they were going to say that he couldn't be doing it and he was worried. But then they got out and they were taking orders. And he was like, ok, this is a game changer," she said.
Chaz said, "They turned on their sirens and they also took pictures with me and they posted it on their Facebook."
Now the police and rescue squad and plenty of regular folks honk their horns and stop by to chat.
Chaz is all smiles.
He'll use the money he does make to buy more gardening tools to grow more vegetables to help more people.
