What started out as a good old-fashioned lemonade stand has left some parents in the Wolseley neighbourhood of Winnipeg feeling a little sour.

On Thursday, Toby McCrae's two sons along with three of their school friends set up a lemonade stand at the corner of Lipton Street and Westminster Avenue.

A half hour into selling lemonade, a man approached the group and handed them $100. That's when one of McCrae's sons ran home, excited to tell his mom what had just happened.

"He says, 'he gave $20 to each of us and he told us we could learn to not pay taxes,'" said McCrae. "I said, 'That's really weird.'"

Along with five $20 bills, the man also handed the boys a business card for an anti-tax website promising to educate members about their rights.

On the back of the card, written in blue pen, was a note about how to make money "with your own society."

McCrae looked up the man's website and immediately felt it was strange and unusual. She called Winnipeg police, took the money from the kids and asked them to shut down their stand.

Her son later saw the same man get into a white van a block away.

"I thought, 'Well how cliché is that,'" said McCrae.

The incident prompted her to sit down with her kids and talk about how to be safe and to not take money from strangers who aren't buying lemonade.

A close up of the business card the stranger gave to kids.

The whole situation is unfortunate, she said, because the kids were simply trying to raise money to buy wildflowers in order to attract bees. She hopes it will not stop them from trying to do good.

"We have such a safe street here with parents and families looking out for one another. I don't feel nervous or scared I would just like the police to speak with him and let him know, that it's not appropriate to deal with children in that manner," said McCrae.

Her son, Henry Kreider, 10, said he and his friends hold lemonade stands once a week throughout the summer. While he said the whole incident was scary, he doesn't want his friends to worry.

"If it does happen again, we'll just pack up our lemonade stand and go tell our parents," said Kreider.

Winnipeg police said they are looking into the incident.