http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...2616300c8.html
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7-year-old raises $80,000 for cancer
By Shelley Emling, Palm Beach Post-Cox News
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
On Wednesday, the Philadelphia Foundation will hand out its "philanthropist of the year" award to a feisty 7-year-old who has squeezed more benevolence into her short life than most adults 10 times her age.
Alexandra Scott has raised more than $80,000 for cancer research by selling cups of lemonade from a stand in her front yard in Wynnewood, Pa.
Weakened by neuroblastoma, a potentially deadly form of cancer that affects mostly babies and small children, Alexandra is able to put up her stand only a few times a year. But when she does, it pays off.
Last Saturday she raked in $14,000, despite nonstop rain that forced her to pitch a tent. One $500 check came from the Philadelphia 76ers pro basketball team.
"When life gives you lemons you should make lemonade, and that's exactly what this little girl has done," said Phil Arkow of the Philadelphia Foundation, an 85-year-old philanthropic organization.
It was just two days before her first birthday that doctors in Connecticut discovered a growth on Alex's spinal column that turned out to be neuroblastoma, which is fatal in about 40 percent of cases.
The doctors operated on Alex's first birthday, and successfully removed 99 percent of the tumor.
But the stubborn growth came back, and even after another four surgeries it wouldn't go away.
Her parents, Jay and Liz Scott, were given the name of a doctor in Philadelphia who started Alex on an experimental radioactive iodine treatment.
Her condition stabilized, and she was able to attend public school and design clothes for her dolls, one of her favorite hobbies.
Liz Scott said she still can't fathom the success of the lemonade stand, which was strictly her daughter's idea.
"She had just turned 4 and was in the hospital getting a stem cell transplant," she said. "One day she announced she wanted to have a lemonade stand.... Then she said she wanted to give the money to the hospital."
News of the stand spread by word of mouth, and she raised $2,000 on her first Saturday.
Last August, Alex and her mother created Alex's Lemonade Stand Fund with the help of the Philadelphia Foundation.
The money she raises goes to both the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and the Connecticut Children's Medical Center, where she underwent treatments.
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