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lemonade

Beyoncé is not only celebrating talented women. She's paying them.

Get in formation and get information.

This week marks the first anniversary of Beyoncé's "Lemonade."

Do you remember where you were April 24, 2016? Of course you do. It was a cultural touchstone. It was the moon landing minus the conspiracy theories and white men.

GIF via "Lemonade."

To celebrate, Beyoncé established college scholarships for women!

More information after this celebratory Bey GIF!

Dance break! GIF via "7/11" video.

Formation scholars will be named for the 2017-18 school year to "encourage and support young women who are unafraid to think outside the box and are bold, creative, conscious and confident." The awards are available to undergraduate and graduate students pursuing degrees in African-American studies, literature, music, art, or creative arts.

Beyoncé scholars walking on the quad. Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images for NARAS.

Four institutions were selected for the program, and one Formation scholar will be selected from each school. The colleges include Howard University in Washington, D.C., Spelman College in Atlanta, Berklee College of Music in Boston, and Parsons School of Design at the New School in New York City.

Details, including the award amount and application deadlines, are available through each school's financial aid or scholarship office.

Me walking into the financial aid office. GIF via "Lemonade."

Queen Bey is benevolent, generous, and serious about lifting up black women.

"Lemonade" was a love letter to black women and girls, a melanin-rich piece of art that couldn't have come at a better time. Her tour raised money to support the families of Flint, Michigan. She spoke out against police violence after the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. Then, she campaigned for Hillary Clinton in hopes she would work on solutions for criminal justice reform and policies to fight poverty and racism.

Me to Beyoncé if we ever met and I had the wherewithal to speak. GIF via Recording Academy/Grammys.

With the creation of these scholarships — two at historically black colleges — Beyoncé continues to use her power and influence for good, all while making some of the most important music of the decade.

They don't call her queen for nothing.

Bow down.

She landed a deal with Whole Foods, has a plan to save the bees — and is in sixth grade.

True

On April 20, 2016, 11-year-old Mikaila Ulmer walked onto the stage at WE Day, a star-studded event celebrating youth who are sparking change in their communities and the world.

Dressed in a white shirt, white pants, and a sparkly belt, with a bright yellow flower in her hair, the sixth-grader stood in front of 15,000 cheering people and confidently told the story of her journey to become a successful social entrepreneur who in 2014 closed a national deal with Whole Foods Market.

How does a little girl — who sells lemonade — end up here?

All photos from Microsoft and WE Day, used with permission.

It all started with a bee.

When Mikaila was 4 years old, she was stung by a bee. Just days later, she was stung again.

Two bee stings in one week would be enough to make any little girl terrified of bees, and Mikaila was no different. She wanted nothing to do with the insect ever again.

But her mother, in a stroke of genius, encouraged her to learn more about bees instead of being afraid of them. Through her learning, Mikaila discovered just how valuable honeybees are. She learned they are the main pollinators of many major fruit and nut crops as well as makers of honey.

But it wasn't all good news. She also learned that, thanks to a variety of factors including commonly used pesticides that may be lethal to bees, they had been dying off at an unprecedented rate for over a decade.

The important honey-making insects that she was now in love with were in serious danger of becoming extinct.

And with that, her fear was transformed into a passion and desire to help save the bees.

Around the same time, her great-grandmother, Helen, sent Mikaila's family an old 1940s cookbook. In it was her grandmother's special recipe for flaxseed lemonade.

Mikaila, who was planning on entering a local children's business competition, suddenly had a bright idea.

What if she could make lemonade using her great-grandmother's recipe and help the bees at the same time?

Mikaila decided to use honey in addition to sugar and entered her concoction into the competition with the goal of spreading the word about the importance of bees — and donating money to help save them.

That's how Me & The Bees Lemonade was born.

In the years since, Mikaila has grown her Me & The Bees Lemonade (formerly Bee Sweet Lemonade) into a thriving business and used a percentage of the profits from every sale to support international organizations working to save bees from extinction.

Her passion to make a difference and turn Me & The Bees Lemonade into a successful social enterprise has garnered the young business owner quite a bit of attention and success.

She secured a $60,000 investment on the popular ABC show "Shark Tank" from investor Daymond John.

In 2014, her hard work paid off when Me & The Bees Lemonade secured a deal with Whole Foods. Her lemonade is now distributed in 55 stores.

She was one of a select few children invited to the White House Kids’ State Dinner.

And, she was chosen as one of tech coalition MVMT50’s top 10 innovators of 2015.

Mikaila's just getting started.

She's excited about coding and is learning Java and is working with Microsoft to continue to scale her business. She’s even building her own computer and has aspirations to create apps so she can share her business acumen with others. She inspires kids at conferences like WE Day all around the country but is also focused locally, helping her classmates and friends with their own business ideas.

What does she tell them? According to the Austin Chronicle, she gives one of her favorite pieces of advice: "Don't be discouraged by life's little stings. You can be sweet and be profitable." She's the living proof.

This chef is much bigger than her 'Lemonade' cameo, though that was pretty great too.

Where were you when Beyoncé made a tall glass of "Lemonade" and shared it with the world?

The superstar's highly anticipated visual album "Lemonade" debuted in mid-late April, but not before her film of the same name premiered on HBO. Through haunting imagery, the captivating poetry of Warsan Shire, and, of course, the music of Queen B herself, fans were gifted a cinematic love letter to black womanhood.

GIF from "Lemonade."

A sisterhood of women brought the film to life, as "Lemonade" featured cameos from some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg, Quvenzhané Wallis, and even Serena Williams made appearances.

And while her cameo was brief, one star shone a little brighter than the rest — Leah Chase.

Chase is more than a world-renowned chef. She's American royalty, holding court in New Orleans.

At 93 years old, Chase is still a force of nature, cooking, inspiring, and changing lives for the better. Here are six reasons to celebrate this living legend.

1. Her gumbo fueled the leaders of the civil rights movement.

Dooky Chase, the restaurant Chase runs with her husband Edgar "Dooky" Chase Jr., has been a New Orleans staple since 1941. The restaurant was one of the few high-end establishments serving black clientele and quickly became a hot spot for mixed-race groups to make plans for advancing the civil rights movement. Meetings like this were illegal at the time, and someone even threw a bomb through the window of the restaurant. But it didn't stop Chase or the meetings. Hot bowls of gumbo were served to the likes of Thurgood Marshall, Oretha Castle Haley, the Rev. A.L. Davis, and even Martin Luther King Jr. in the restaurant's upstairs meeting room.

"I feel like in this restaurant we changed the course of the world over bowls of gumbo," Leah Chase told The Times-Picayune. "That's how we always did the planning — over gumbo."

GIF via ABC News.

2. The restaurant (and Chase) still draw crowds and have served many famous faces since then.

From Duke Ellington and James Baldwin to President George W. Bush and the entire cast of "Top Chef," Leah Chase has served the latest and greatest in her restaurant.

Oh, and — true story — she once admonished not-yet-President Barack Obama for adding hot sauce to her gumbo before trying it.

"He was campaigning. Dr. Norman Francis (Xavier University president) brought him to me. ... He was a very aggressive young man, I thought. I thought, 'You don't have a chance. No way in the world is this black man going to beat this white woman.'

But he was so good and so kind. But the only thing is, he put hot sauce in my gumbo. I said, 'Oh, Mr. Obama.' He said, 'But I like hot sauce.'"

Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/ /AFP/Getty Images.

3. When Hurricane Katrina left her with nothing, she didn't give up.

The storm flooded he restaurant with more than five feet of water. She lost everything. Her home was destroyed too. For many people, a devastating setback like that, especially in your 80s, would surely mean retirement. But not for Chase.

Just two years after Katrina, Chase and her husband were able to re-open the restaurant. See what I mean about a force of nature?

Chase stands with members of Women of the Storm in Washington, D.C., to bring attention to the need for rebuilding and preservation of the Gulf Coast. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

4. Her restaurant doubles as a gallery for black artists.

Chase is a vocal advocate for African-American artists, and the walls of the family restaurant serve as a gallery of sorts, showcasing the work of world-renowned and lesser-known black artists. The large and stunning collection is considered by many to be one of the best private collections in New Orleans.

President George W. Bush dines with Chase and other honored guests. Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.

Oh, and speaking of galleries, Chase has one named for her at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. Because of course she does.

5. Not to mention Chase is a queen and a princess.

For her prowess in the kitchen, Chase is often recognized as the Queen of Creole Cuisine, but it took a little help from Disney to make her a princess.

Yes, Chase was the inspiration for Tiana, the main character from Disney's 2009 animated feature "The Princess and the Frog."

Anika Noni Rose, the voice of Princess Tiana, arrives for the world premiere of Disney's "The Princess and the Frog." Photo by Robyn BeckAFP/Getty Images.

6. And at 93, she's not done yet. Not even close.

She still runs the kitchen at Dooky Chase. In fact, the family has limited the restaurant's operating hours to "protect Chase from her own work ethic."

For her hard work and masterful execution, she's taking home the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in the summer of 2016, a culinary honor bestowed to the only the very best.

And she's still a major philanthropist and inspiration in New Orleans.

Just at the end of April 2016, she served up some fine food and a dish of wisdom to a group of African-American boys as part of the Silverback Society's VIP luncheon.

Photo by Silverback Society, used with permission.

"Lemonade" could have been an hour of Chase making gumbo, and it still would've been overflowing with black girl magic.

Because she's a chef. She's an activist. She's just that good.

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) hugs Chase in 2014. Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images.