Liz Scott: My three sons

The Scott kids. (L to R) Alex, Eddie, Joey, Patrick.

Spring has definitely sprung in our neck of the woods, or maybe even summer given recent temperatures hovering around 80 degrees, but we’re ready for it. It’s the most wonderful time of the year (feel free to sing this to the tune of Andy Williams’ Christmas tune or that clever Staples back-to-school commercial) here at ALSF as we gear up for an amazing summer lemonade season!

This summer will also bring a new twist to the Scott household as we prepare to send our oldest son Patrick off to college in the fall. Despite Patrick’s maturity, Jay and I are blown away that we’ll actually have a kid in college come late August – it doesn’t seem possible. Patrick, as with all of our sons, has been proud to see how his sister’s legacy continues to thrive, but he has an extra special relationship with the Foundation since he was the one who helped Alex set up her first stand. He often speaks in public about the Foundation, most recently at our Lemon Ball this year where he presented the Stand Host of the Year award to Riley Miller (a fellow 17-year-old) and her family from Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Our son Eddie is also getting ready to graduate from middle school this year and will be entering high school in the fall, which again, is hard to believe. Many of you may not know this but Eddie is, literally, a walking advertisement for Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. He wears a different ALSF t-shirt/sweatshirt every day to school with the goal to never wear the same one twice. It’s pretty awesome as it gets all of his classmates involved and aware of what we do as they keep track of his daily wardrobe choice. He has been wearing an Alex’s Lemonade Stand shirt every day for nearly 3 years now! Eddie is also a big fan of The Great Chefs Event. He really enjoys the fantastic food prepared and given his endless appetite –those of you with 13-year-old boys can relate – he makes sure to get a taste (or two) of each signature dish.

Our youngest Joey is also a superstar supporter of his big sister’s vision. Joey was just a baby when Alex died, yet has such a connection with all that we do since he’s never known life without the Foundation. He takes great pride in how his school supports ALSF every year by hosting Alex’s “Original” Lemonade Stand and he is always the first one to spot anything that says Alex’s Lemonade Stand anywhere we go! Joey also loves to hear stories of how nurturing his big sister was and how she loved taking care of him, like how she spent 3 months knitting a white kitten to give him on his first birthday, and how they often rode around together in our wagon.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that I feel extremely privileged to have such wonderful sons. We usually reserve the term “hero” at ALSF for our brave kids fighting cancer, but I know that Patrick, Eddie and Joey were Alex’s heroes (as she was theirs). I am so proud to be their mom.

Please know that your support has a meaningful impact on brothers, sisters and all members of families affected by childhood cancer. Thank you, as always, for your continued support and dedication to ALSF. And get ready…National Lemonade Days is just around the corner!

-Liz Scott (Alex’s, Patrick’s, Eddie’s and Joey’s Mom)

Guest blog: What it Means to "Be Here Now"

During the second half of last year, we were fortunate to have Steve Pessagno from GlaxoSmithKline take up shop in the ALSF office as part of a program at GSK called PULSE - where employees volunteer at a nonprofit for a three or six month immersion experience. And immerse himself he did! In addition to an enormous amount of work he conducted for the Foundation, Steve also joined Team Lemon, attended the Lemon Ball and did just about anything else he could do to support our cause. Below is a blog where Steve, in his own eloquent words, talks about his experience with ALSF.
- Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation

I recently returned to GSK after spending six months on a PULSE assignment working with Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF), one of the larger childhood cancer philanthropies in the US. Although my PULSE assignment has officially ended, by no means is my PULSE experience over. Which is such a good thing, because the experience exceeded my expectations on many levels.

Liz and Jay Scott established ALSF eight years ago to carry out the vision of their only daughter, Alexandra, who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma just before her first birthday. When she was four, Alex told her parents she wanted to set up a lemonade stand in order to donate money to doctors to help them find a cure for cancer. She raised $2,000 in one day. While bravely fighting her cancer, Alex continued to set up lemonade stands every year--and the nation took notice, with thousands of children, teenagers, and adults following suit. In 2004, Alex died at the age of eight, but her inspiration to help fight cancer "one cup at a time" have resulted in over $50 million to fund more than 200 cutting-edge research projects, create a travel program to support families of children receiving treatment, and develop resources to help people everywhere affected by childhood cancer.

A couple of years ago, ALSF brought together many childhood cancer charities to determine how they could better work together, perhaps share/leverage resources in certain areas, and form an umbrella organization that could help achieve specific common objectives. People across the organizations started talking, summits were held, committees were formed, and work was started. However, the effort was never officially chartered; its leadership was unclear; participants began to realize just how difficult and resource-intensive collaboration can be; and by the second year, the effort had stalled.

My assignment involved assessing the collaboration's work to date, diagnosing barriers to coordinated action and collaboration across the community; analyzing industry collaboration models; and designing a sustainable collaboration solution and developing the associated business plan for the community to implement.It also included running my first half-marathon as part of Team Lemon, a group that raises money for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. That's me (above) after the race.

Going into my PULSE assignment, I knew I'd learn a lot about pediatric cancer and figured I would learn a couple of things about myself and GSK. But would it be enough? I believe this is a common source of mild angst among PULSE volunteers; i.e., to be expected to drive up to GSK on your first day back with a car full of lessons, all packaged and ready to be unloaded in order to begin making an immediate impact on the company and its culture. The fact is, most of the knowledge you gain through an experience like PULSE are deeply personal, and they are realized gradually. Some of these lessons are new; some are validations of existing notions. There definitely are things we can understand better about GSK--and see more clearly--once we are put in a different setting.

My commitments as I integrate back into GSK are to:

• Communicate more personally and efficiently--don't "feed the beast"
• Speak up more to clarify accountability and responsibility
• Work more, meet better and less
• Appreciate more, help out more

Our organization is composed of exceptionally motivated and talented individuals, and our leadership by and large does a terrific job in celebrating team successes, recognizing individual accomplishments, and rewarding strong performance. This is something that may have been more in the back of mind than what it should have been prior to PULSE. But now, I want to ensure that I inquire more and judge less, collaborate more and compete less internally, and take time to give feedback when someone does something really well, not just when someone can do something better.

A question I'm frequently asked about PULSE is whether the experience helped me "put things in perspective" and if I now have a renewed appreciation for things I may have been taking for granted. Certainly--I realized this about halfway through the assignment, when I was invited to speak about PULSE at a GSK-sponsored charity golf outing and silent auction to benefit ALSF. After the event, Liz Scott spoke about Alex's legacy, how we can all make a difference in the fight against childhood cancer, and how much she (and the Foundation) appreciate the efforts, time, and, of course, money that everyone in attendance was contributing that day. Then a family who had received assistance from the Foundation spoke. I'll never forget their son Danny, a cancer survivor who is now legally blind due to the side effects of his chemotherapy regimen. As I listened to Danny and watched him read from his paper with oversized script, I was struck by how big his smile was as he read...how happy he is.

He and his family have experienced a frightening type of adversity that I can only hope my family and I never have to experience. But you would never know it by looking at him, listening to him, talking to him. That's in the past. It's done. Look forward. There's much to get done and experience.

That evening, I experienced what it truly means to "be here now"--thanks to the pure gratefulness and happiness that Danny personified and beamed out to us. That evening, I made a commitment to myself always to carry forward with an active (not latent) sense of gratitude--for all the wonderful people in my life, all the things I've been given, all the things I've earned--and a strong conviction for all the good we can do by making the most of every moment. - Steve Pessagno

"Stupid Cancer"

We wanted to dedicate this blog to all of our courageous childhood cancer heroes, especially the families of Declan Roberts and Genessa Mikolajski, who recently passed away. We send our heartfelt condolences to the families of Declan and Genessa as their children's courage inspires and motivates us to continue our mission of finding a cure for all types of childhood cancer.

Declan Roberts passed away on February 27 at the age of 4 almost a year after being diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma. Despite enduring a year of aggressive treatment, he remained spirited, fearless and always positive. Declan pretty much summed up how so many of us feel about cancer in his own words, “There are three things I can call stupid: Stupid cancer! Stupid medicine (YUCK)! Stupid shots!"

Sadly, we also recently lost another brave hero, Genessa Mikolajski, who was 13-years-old and battled bone cancer for three years. Through multiple treatments and surgeries, she continued to look at life with courage and happiness. We were privileged to meet Genessa during the taping of an episode that recently aired on TLC’s “19 and Counting” in which The Duggar Family held Alex’s Lemonade Stands outside their local mall in Arkansas, where Genessa lived. Genessa was making plans to have a lemonade stand of her own this summer, which her family still plans to hold in memory of Genessa and all kids battling the disease.

Our heroes like Declan and Genessa remind us of how important our work is and why it’s imperative to raise funds as well as awareness for childhood cancer research. Learn how you can get involved today to make an impact and help us reach our lifesaving goal.

Guest blog: Author Jacqueline Davies and the Great Lemonade War Contest

We often use the word “battle” in the context of our fight against childhood cancer, but we’ve waged a different kind of conflict in a new contest for schools – The Great Lemonade War. We’ve recruited award winning children’s book author Jacqueline Davies, who has authored a series of “lemonade” books – The Lemonade War, The Lemonade Crime and The Bell Bandit – to help us with this contest that challenges schools to compete against each other to see who can raise the most money through a lemonade stand project. The school that raises the most money for ALSF by the end of the contest will receive a visit from Jacqueline, as well as Liz or myself, in addition to other cool prizes. Please encourage any teachers, students or parents to check the contest out as it embodies two very important concepts – the value of reading and charitable giving. Jackie was kind enough to write a guest blog for us this week, which is below. It pretty much sums up what we’re all about here at ALSF, the impact of kids helping kids.
– Jay Scott, Alex’s Dad

I recently read an article in the Washington Post that listed the charitable giving in 2010 of each of the presidential candidates. The range was wide from a low of 1.8% of adjusted gross income to a high of 14.2%. The article noted that the numbers show “some very disparate charitable giving habits.” Which got me thinking about how we as Americans think about charitable giving and what we do about it.

Obviously we care about the charitable giving of a potential president. We consider it a reflection of the candidate’s character. It’s one more way to assess who this person is, deep down, to the very core. We look more favorably on those who give. So charitable giving is good. But it isn’t automatic.

There are conditions for giving and sharing, and one of the most important conditions, as discovered in a recent psychological study conducted at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, is shared work. The study revealed that when three-year-old children work together, but the “profits” of the work are distributed unevenly, the “wealthier” kids will spontaneously give to the less fortunate kids. Mind you, this spontaneous giving happened among three-year-olds, not a group that typically takes to “sharing” of any kind.

So, shared work triggers charitable giving. And charitable giving is both good and habit forming. It would follow that one way to promote charitable giving in our society is to introduce the “habit” to children through shared work.

Which is exactly what the Great Lemonade War contest achieves. Children in schools all across the country are working together to raise money that they will then donate to fund research into treatment and new cures for childhood cancer. Not only is money raised for an important cause, but children develop the habit of charitable giving, which bodes well for our society in years to come.

Maybe thirty or forty years from now we’ll be voting for a presidential candidate who will recall his or her participation in the Great Lemonade War. – Jacqueline Davies

(Want to hear more from Jacqueline? Click here to watch a special video message from her.)