Texas Boy Sells Hot Chocolate To Raise Border Wall Funds

AUSTIN, TEXAS — It's not uncommon to see kids setting up lemonade stands to raise funds for a favorite cause. But a hot chocolate stand set up by a 7-year-old boy in Austin to collect money for construction of a wall along the southern border is raising a few eyebrows.

The boy living in the Steiner Ranch neighborhood in northwest Austin came up with the idea to help fund wall construction after watching the president deliver the State of the Union address earlier this month. "Walls work, and walls save lives," Trump said during his Feb. 5 speech to Congress, uttering an oft-repeated political mantra that continues to galvanize and energize his base. Building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico is a signature Trump pledge envisioned as a way of curbing illegal immigration.

That's the moment Benton decided to chip in for the barrier's construction, his mother, Jennifer Stevens, told KXAN. “He wanted to know about the wall so we explained what it was about and he was, like, ‘I want to raise money for the wall,’” she told the news station.

Active members of the Republican Party, Benton's parents said they freely express their worldview to their children. With equal parts entrepreneurship and budding political ideology gained from his parents' insights, Benton poured his efforts into his hot chocolate stand to further his support of Trump's wall.

His father showed the news station the marshmallow options: A large variety named after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that costs 50 cents extra or an assortment of smaller versions named after El Paso, Texas, politician Beto O'Rourke, her fellow Democrat, that are thrown in free of charge.

But not everyone is warming up to the idea. Some observers have suggested the boy's nascent beliefs aren't his own, but an extension of his parents' views. Others are steaming mad; the harshest critics of the enterprise have taken to calling the kid "Little Hitler" on social media.

Benton's mother rejects such criticism, preferring to view her son's political activism as illustrative of good parenting. “People think he’s brainwashed,” she told the news station. “Well, of course, he supports Trump because we do, and he hears how we talk and this and that. Call that brainwashing, but I call it parenting, because we instill our values in him.”

By extension, the owner of a store the hot chocolate stand fronts started getting flak from critics on social media. The backlash prompted the boy's dad to shut down the operation for relocation elsewhere.

Yet there are avid supporters of the effort, too. One donor matched all the money raised on Saturday, further furthering the boy's resolve. So far, he's reportedly raised more than $5,000 for the barrier expected to cost well over $5 billion to build.

But earmarking funds raised through the hot chocolate stand for the wall project is more challenging than one might think. Citizens prompted to raise money for pet causes have a single option of sending monetary donations to a fund labeled "Gifts to the United States." Donations meant for individual government agencies requires Congressional approval.

Such challenges were recently seen in Florida, where Brian Kolfage, a triple amputee and Purple Heart recipient who served in Iraq, raised an $20 million in donations via a GoFund Me campaign to build the wall — an impressive sum but far short of the stated $1 billion goal. In the end, the raised cash was returned to donors after it was learned the federal government lacked a mechanism to accept the funds, as the Washington Post reported.

Still, the hot chocolate continues to pour in Austin, as do the hot streams of clashing ideology of political observers.

>>> See the full story at KXAN

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Photo by Rachel Nunes/Patch staff