DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Young Cancer Victim to International Hero

Imagine This: You’re diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer, shortly before your first birthday and receive a stem cell transplant the day after your fourth birthday. Your dream is to help other kids with cancer, so what do you do?

 Who: You’re Alexandra Scott, you’re eight years old, and you have a dream.

 What: You’ve had cancer just about your entire life and your dream is to help other kids with cancer.

 Where: You live in Pennsylvania near Philadelphia.

 When: You’re born January 18, 1996, and pass away at the age of 8 on August 1, 2004.

Doctors discover that you have cancer shortly before your first birthday. They tell your parents that, even if you survive the cancer, you’ll probably never walk.

By your second birthday, you’re crawling and able to stand up with leg braces. You’re working hard to gain strength and to learn how to walk. You appear to be beating the odds, but then your family finds out that your tumors have started growing again.

 The day after your fourth birthday, you receive a stem cell transplant and tell your mother that when you get out of the hospital, you want to have a lemonade stand. You want to earn money to give to the doctors so they can help other kids the way they helped you.

You open your first lemonade stand later that year with the help of your older brother and raise an amazing $2000.00 for “your hospital.”

While bravely battling your own cancer, you and your family continue to hold yearly lemonade stands in your front yard to benefit childhood cancer research. News spreads and people from all over the world are moved by your story. They begin to hold their own lemonade stands and donate the proceeds to you and your cause.

In August of 2004, you pass away at the age of 8 knowing that with the help of others, you have raised more than $1 million to help find a cure for the disease which has taken so many lives including your own.

Your family—including your brothers Patrick, Eddie, and Joey—and supporters around the world are committed to continuing your inspiring legacy through Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.

                                 “The time is always right to do what is right.”

                                                 Martin Luther King, Jr.

 For More about Alexandra Scott:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwOwGGuhqGw

 Something to Think about: Why do you think Alexandra’s lemonade stand was so important to her?

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

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