Alexandra “Alex” Scott was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer, shortly before her first birthday. It was around the age of four that Alex told her parents that she wanted to set up a lemonade stand in her front yard with the plan of donating the money she raised to doctors who were working to find a cure for the disease that she and other children had. The first year of “Alex’s Lemonade Stand,” Alex raised $2,000 in just one day. As Alex fought her own battle, she continued to think of others walking the same path as she was, and had a lemonade stand every year. By 2004, at the age of eight, Alex’s stand and her courageous inspiration had raised more than $1 million towards finding a cure for the disease that eventually took her life. To carry on the legacy of Alex, people from all over the world, moved by her story of giving, hold their own lemonade stands, donating the proceeds to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to support pediatric cancer research. Southwest Elementary School in Clemmons started their own “Alex’s Lemonade Stand” in 2011, with this year marking their 8th year of remembering a little girl who wanted to make a difference and help others.
Over the past seven years, students in the exceptional children’s classes at Southwest Elementary School have raised over $31,932 to support Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation with the help of their school, teachers, parents, friends, and community! This great charitable effort not only raises funds for a good cause, it also helps children with special needs with their communication and language skills. Maria Vernon, Speech-Language Pathologist at Southwest Elementary School said, “The focus of this event each year is on communication, and it gives our students with special needs in Southwest’s exceptional children’s classrooms (Preschool EC, Readiness, Core 1 and Core 2) a chance to shine and lead as they learn about helping others by working on their social skills, math, language, and functional communication skills. The students who happen to be exceptional are organizing, planning, and advertising for this event, sequencing the steps to make the lemonade, practicing addition and subtraction with money, and learning how to use appropriate social skills and body language, while selling the lemonade for 50 cents a cup. We all need help sometimes, and our students selling lemonade learn so much about helping others, serving others with a smile, being leaders in our school and what community really looks like from the outpouring of support they receive. Our students work on the Three C’s—Community, Character, and Communication—as they sell lemonade, which goes along with our school’s theme. Each year the lesson that our students learn is that we all need help sometimes, and with this lemonade stand, they are helping other kids sick with cancer.
Come and drink lemonade or purchase a silent auction item at The 8th-Annual Alex’s Lemonade Stand at Southwest Elementary School, 1631 Southwest School Road, Clemmons, NC, on Tuesday, June 4th, 2019, with the Silent Auction from 8am-1pm and the lemonade stand from 10:30am-1pm. To make a direct donation, visit
www.alexlemonade.org/mypage/1566795
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/811365585914609/
Main Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/SouthwestElementarySchoolSupportsALSF/
