Philadelphia Moms

Alex's Lemonade Stand at Nurture

Did you know September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month? Childhood Cancer remains the number one disease killer of children under the age of 15 in the United States. Over 12,000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year in the United States alone. Of those diagnosed, an estimated 2,500 children will not survive, that is one child in the US dying from cancer every 3.5 hours. 36 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer every day in the United States, that is one new diagnosis every 40 minutes.

 

Alexandra "Alex" Scott, a young girl suffering from cancer, decided to hold a lemonade stand in the front yard of her Wynnewood home 9 years ago, in order to raise money for cancer research. Her lemonade stand became a national movement. Alex lost her battle to cancer when she was only 8 years old, but in her lifetime she was able to raise $1 million for childhood cancer research.

 

Alex's legacy lives on through the Alex' s Lemonade Stand Foundation. On Saturday, September 26th an Alex's lemonade stand will be held at Nurture in Ardmore from 11am to 4 pm. Everyone who donates to the lemonade stand will receive a 20% off coupon to the store. At the end of the day Nurture will donate 10% of its proceeds to the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation.

 

If you are in need of any baby/toddler items, this would be the perfect day to get what you need and support a good cause. If not then you should still head to Nurture to quench your thirst and help fight childhood cancer "one cup at at time."

March for Babies

I don't tell too many personal stories on this site, but I think this cause is worth getting a little personal.

As some of my readers may know, my sister-in-law had a baby in 2006 who was born prematurely and passed away two weeks later.  He spent those two weeks in the NICU at CHOP and for the most part, myself, my husband and most of my husband's family lived at CHOP those two weeks as well.  It was the most gut-wrenching period of my life.  It wasn't my child, but to say that it forever changed me and my view of having children would be an understatement.

In addition to being born prematurely, my nephew also had some significant birth defects and in his short life underwent several surgeries and other procedures.  In the end, he passed on from complications not really related to those procedures.  Of the many, many things I learned during those two weeks, one thing was how much medical intervention is possible these days for premature babies.  It didn't work out for my family, but the bottom line is that because of research made possible by institutions like the March of Dimes, many babies are saved. 

So for the second year, I'm participating in the March for Babies in honor of my nephew.  For some reason the button on my sidebar related to this doesn't seem to be working, but if you're interested in donating, please click this link.   I don't usually hit people up for money and I know donating is difficult in this economic climate, so if you're able to contribute, you have my heartfelt gratitude.  The money raised from the walk will go to programs and research aimed at ensuring families have healthy babies. 

Because no woman should have to walk out of the hospital without her child.

Thank you.