Story highlights Missouri boy, 9, runs lemonade stand to help pay the legal fees for his adoption

Over the course of three days, the family raised more than $16,000 from in-person sales and donations

(CNN) Most kids who set up lemonade stands hope to earn enough for an ice cream or maybe a new bike. But young Tristan has a loftier goal: He wants to get adopted.

From his front yard in Springfield, Missouri, the 9-year-old spent last weekend selling cups of lemonade and cookies by the hundreds. Every cent will go to legal fees so his guardian, Donnie Davis, can adopt him.

Davis and her husband, Jimmy Davis, had expected to raise a few hundred bucks with the lemonade stand and a yard sale -- far short of the $5,000 to $10,000 in fees it will take to adopt the boy. But then the local media got wind of her story, word got around, and people began flocking to her yard.

"It just spread," she told CNN. "We had people driving two-and-a-half hours just to meet Tristan."

On Saturday alone, more than 600 people came to donate and share their own adoption stories, Davis said. "We were constantly running for more ice, water, cookies," she said. "There was one point in time, we put water in the cooler and sold out before it was even cold."

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