Youngsters use stands to raise funds for children with cancer
Making lemonade from lemons
A couple of lemonade stands set up in Lawrence this weekend are raising money for the youngest victims of a devastating disease.
“We’re trying to raise money to help children who have cancer,” 10-year-old Kaitlyn Dilley, of Lawrence, said Friday, as she sold glasses of lemonade for a donation inside the Hy-Vee store on West Sixth Street.
Kaitlyn, a Schwegler School student, was one of a group of volunteers working Friday to raise money for the “Alex’s Lemonade Stand” foundation, started by a young cancer patient, Alex Scott, six years ago in Philadelphia. Alex died in August 2004 at age 8, but her stands continued and raised more than $1 million nationwide last year.
The local lemonade stands will continue today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at both Lawrence Hy-Vee stores, 3504 Clinton Parkway and 4000 W. Sixth St. About 20 other stores in the Kansas City area are having lemonade stands this weekend, part of an effort spearheaded by 9-year-old cancer survivor Jacob Mozer, of Blue Springs, Mo.
More about the fundraiser
In Lawrence, the effort was organized by Judi O’Grady, who lost her 15-year-old daughter, Brooke, to Hodgkin’s disease in 2001. O’Grady since has begun a foundation in Brooke’s name and has lobbied Congress for increased funding for childhood cancer research.
She said the lemonade stand “means to me that there is hope out there for these kids … I don’t know how to stress strongly enough the need for research dollars for these kids.”