Motorists driving along Chapel Avenue last Friday couldn’t miss it.
A large group of elementary school students wearing yellow shirts were running up and down the sidewalk with signs and collection bins. Their goal was to sell lemonade to help fight childhood cancer.
Alex’s Lemonade Stand has become a mainstay at Joyce Kilmer Elementary School in. In its eighth year, Kilmer has raised more than $23,000 since they first started the fundraiser.
Denise Roskey, a first-grade teacher at Kilmer, brought the event to the school in 2007 and has expanded it as it has gained popularity in the community. Parents, friends and neighbors know about the fundraiser every year and go out of their way to stop at the school.
For those who may not know about the stand, they were able to figure it out when they drove by. Students took turns waving signs along the sidewalk outside the school, trying to get vehicles to stop and take two minutes to buy a cup of lemonade or a soft pretzel.
“This is where we get most of our money from,” Roskey said. “We even have adults go down with the kids to the (traffic) light.”
It isn’t enough to just raise money for the charity, however. Roskey wants the students to understand why they are having a lemonade stand.
For the first time this year, the students connected with a child with cancer on the Alex’s Lemonade Foundation website. They did research on the child and the form of cancer they have and then wrote a letter to them. The letters were on display in front of the stand.
“I don’t want them to come out here and drop the money in and think it’s just about the lemonade,” Roskey said. “Even the first graders, I want them to know what happened with this child and to have a closer connection.”
The fundraiser serves as a learning tool for the students. Roskey did a presentation in front of all the classes prior to the event. She told the story of Alex Scott, a 4-year-old cancer patient who started her first lemonade stand in 2000, transforming it into the foundation it is today.
“I tell them that they can help kids, no matter how old they are,” Roskey said. “I wanted to show kids they can make an impact on the world.”
Some students were able to help cancer patients in another way. The school has a hair donation event that was included with the lemonade stand. Students were able to get their hair cut and donated to the Children with Hair Loss Foundation.
At Kilmer’s first lemonade stand in 2007, approximately $2,500 was raised. This year, the school raised approximately $3,800, its highest single-year total so far.
“You can do all kinds of other projects. You can do tests,” Roskey said. “But it’s not making kids really feel their impact. So I thought this is a perfect thing that all of the kids could do.”
