ALEX'S LEMONADE STAND FOUNDATION

My sister and I used to have a lemonade stand.

Mixing our “freshly squeezed lemonade” (from concentrate), we would rack in the big bucks ($15), by quenching the thirst of hundreds of runners (about 20) in the sweltering summer sun.

We thought we were saving the world—or at least thirsty runners who insisted on paying $1 for lemonade we were offering at 25 cents.

But for all of the hours we spent at the bottom of our driveway, giggling through our sales of “the best lemonade in town,” I believe our salesgirl skills have been outdone.

We have been one upped by Alex Scott and her Lemonade Stand—mind you, her Lemonade Stand Foundation.

Battling cancer since just before her first birthday, by the time she was four and had just received a stem cell transplant, Alex told her mom that “when I get out of the hospital I want to have a lemonade stand." Alex, however, didn’t just create another lemonade stand on the streets of Philly.

She changed the Lemonade Stand industry.

At the ripe old age of four, Alex donated the $2000 earned from her one-day lemonade stand profits to “her hospital.”

Like any kid, to Alex, it was simple. She wanted to help others, just like her doctors helped her—so every year, Alex held a lemonade stand to benefit “her hospital” and cancer research.

Tragically, Alex passed away in 2004. However, her legacy and memory have lived on through the people Alex touched in her 8 years of life.

Having raised over $1 million in lemonade stand profits in four years, Alex moved people all over the world to donate to the fight against cancer. Since then, her family created Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation—which has not only raised over $35 million to fund research projects and enhance the quality of life of individuals and family members suffering from cancer, but has also inspired a movement of individuals to fundraise “lemonade stand style” to fight cancer.

There are sometimes when kids are lost in their own world.

There are other times, when kids are changing their world.

Alex was one of those other times.

Please visit alexslemonade.org for more information.

(Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation is “fighting childhood cancer, one cup at a time.”)