Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand

What a FABULOUS 2011 Project!

2011-05-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

We are just 'wowed' here at MAGPI. Many many thanks to all of the students and teachers that made our 2011 Project such a wonderful success! We couldn't have done it with out you.

From our fabulous VJ teams at Southern Lehigh Middle School and Fox Township Elementary, to our guest speakers and performers, to the original song created by Mr. Duane, to all of the lemonade stands you hosted, commercials you created and pie -in-the-face contests you held, ALL OF YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE.

The more than $15,000 that all of your raised will mean wonders for the kids battling pediatric cancer -- and gets us that much closer to a cure. You all are truly superheroes.

Here are the highlights of our 2011 program!

We're editing the final VC program and will post it as soon as it's ready!

School Reports from Week Two!

2011-05-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

Hopewell Junior High School
Hopewell sold 375 cups of lemonade at their 7th and 8th grade dance on Friday. They raised $375! Go Hopewell!

Robeson Elementary School
Despite cold and rainy weather, Robeson has sold 498 cups of lemonade -- raising $249 more this week. That's total. From their report: "Sales were brisk and we cured a lot of thirst!"

Fox Township Elementary
Fox Township has one more day to sell lemonade before they make their final tally on Thursday. They've raised $267.85 this week alone!

Southern Lehigh Middle School
SLMS students have been selling lemonade during 7th/8th grade lunches and their activity period… for a total of $86.24 so far!

Hallowell Elementary
Hallowell students reported 200 cups of lemonade sold this week -- adding an additional $518.19 to what they reported last week. What a great success!!

Old Forge School District
Old Forge held their one-day sale today and everyone bought lemonade and made very generous donations. All of theirfifth grade students worked very hard. They are very thankful to all of the students and staff who helped them make a difference for children fighting cancer! They reported raising $718.97 and selling more than 500 cups of lemonade!

Moreland Hills Elementary School
They last day of Moreland Hills' lemonade stand was exciting! By now, all got a chance to do various jobs at the stand-cashier, stirrer, pourer, etc. Once again, pink lemonade was the popular choice. Most students wanted ""a tall pink""! But today, the kindergartners were on a field trip so could not buy lemonade. Otherwise we would have more money! Students in our school were sad that the lemonade stand was done! In the afternoon, they counted money and raffled extra T-shirts we had designed! We made a total of $1536.69!

Valley View School
Valley View School sold lemonade last Friday during our afternoon recess. It was an absolutely beautiful day and the lemonade went down real smooth. They look forward to another day of sales this Friday -- and so far have sold 300 cups of lemonade and raised $150!

National Dali High School- Taiwan
National Dali High School- Taiwan is proud to make further collaborations with Princeton South Elementary School- Minnesota, adding up to $ 1535 of donations! We are mailing out bookmarks with calligraphy (of names translated into Chinese) along with round silk fans with Chinese painting! And we also sold many of our Taiwan specially-designed Lemonade T-shirts!:)

Delaware Valley High School
DVSD has reported that they raised more than $750!

So far that $12,316.11 worth of lemonade to help find a cure for pediatric cancer. You all are doing GREAT! Can't wait until tomorrow's wrap-up celebration!

2011 Poster Contest Entries

2011-05-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

We'll be announcing the winner of this year's poster contest at the celebration videoconference on Friday... but thought you might like to take a peek at the entries!

School Reports from Week One!

2011-05-15T20:49:00.000-07:00

Here's what schools are reporting from week one!

Fox Township Elementary
Fox Township Elementary has sold 476 cups of lemonade -- and 98% of their school population has participated in this program. LEMON-AZING. They've raised $598.91! They've also had a bake sale with ribbon cookies and their sour face contest is really raking in the pennies.

Hallowell Elementary
Third Grade students at Hallowell have sold 479 cups of lemonade -- and raised $780.05. Every student in the third grade has been involved in the project - - and students from Kindergarten through Fifth Grade supported their reject. There was a special ice cream raffle for those who donated on the first day and everyone raved about the lemonade. Special visitors have made donations too. One of their families even donated $100!

Robeson Elementary School
450 cups of lemonade have been sold by the Robeson elementary school team! Students are especially loving lemonade at recess -- and sales at their annual REC BBQ were definitely swift! They've raised $1305. From their daily report: "Alex is seeing to it that we have been having gorgeous weather for our lemonade sales. Thanks angel!"

Montana School for the Deaf and Blind
MSDB has reported 174 cups of lemonade sold -- for a total of $422 so far!
They held a lemonade stand on campus and asked for a donation instead of having a set price. They had pink lemonade and yellow lemonade, along with goodies that were made by students in their life skills classes and donated by staff members. It was a huge success for their school and the community. From their report: "It was awesome to see our students using the skills they have learned in the classroom in real life situation. We want to say thank you to the students, parents, our school, and our community. We would also like to thank Alex's Lemonade Stand for bringing this project and the idea of helping others to our school."

Spring Ford High School
We had two stands after school to accompany Soft Pretzel Tuesday -- and sold 315 cups of lemonade, raising $225. Students were standing in line in both locations! They were excited to see that students were also contributing money above and beyond the requested donation.

Moreland Hills Elementary
Moreland Hills Elementary sold our lemonade during our lunch periods near our cafeterias. They had pink and yellow lemonade and also sold lemonheads. They had 2 sizes of lemonade-a small for 50C and a tall for a dollar. It seems like pink lemonade was very popular. In fact by the time the 5th graders came to their stand, they! were out of pink lemonade. So they know what they have to make more of for tomorrow! They've raised $1043.34 so far -- and their goal is $2000!

National Dali High School
To fight pediatric cancer, National Dali High School-Taiwan has taken Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand Project not only community-wide but also international. National Dali High School organized international fundraising videoconferences with schools across the continent. Thanks to Region 13 Distance Learning in Texas, we were able to hold a multiple-site bidding with schools including Princeton South Elementary School & Princeton High School - Minnesota, Del Valle High School-Texas, Earlham High School- Iowa, and Nicaragua American School, Nicaragua. We’ve had great participations, including terrific Save-the-World Presentations by Princeton S. Elementary, outstanding Varsity Band Performances by Princeton High School, and fabulous Global Concern Presentations & Calligraphy Performances by National Dali High School, Taiwan ! They raised $1200!

Little Flower Family and Children’s Services
Our High School Lives Skills class, home economics class, and a 8th grade class sold lemonade and cookies around the school campus from their roving lemonade stand. They've sold 46 cups of lemonade and raised $83.25!

That's $5888.05 reported raised so far! Keep it up everyone!

National Dali High School & International Fundraising Videoconferences for AVLS 2011

2011-05-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

To fight pediatric cancer, National Dali High School-Taiwan has taken Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand Project not only community-wide but also international. National Dali High School organized international fundraising videoconferences with schools across the continent. Thanks to Region 13 Distance Learning in Texas, we were able to hold a multiple-site bidding with schools including Princeton South Elementary School & Princeton High School -Minnesota, Del Valle High School-Texas, Earlham High School- Iowa, and Nicaragua American School, Nicaragua. We’ve had great participations, including terrific Save-the-World Presentations by Princeton S. Elementary, outstanding Varsity Band Performances by Princeton High School, and fabulous Global Concern Presentations & Calligraphy Performances by National Dali High School, Taiwan!

Special thanks to our world class teachers: Mr. Michael Cunningham & Mrs. Cindy Brovold.

Written by lead teacher-Meimei Mary Shih & students of National Dali High School, Taiwan

What a FANTASTIC KICK OFF! These schools have GREAT Lemon Spirit!

2011-05-09T04:06:00.001-07:00

Wow. Many thanks to all of the schools who joined us for the kick-off videoconference of the 2011 Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand project! It was lemon-azing.

Schools from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana, New Jersey and even as far as Taiwan showed off their lemon spirit. Our VJs from Fox Township Elementary School in Kersey, Pennsylvania showed us how EVERYONE can be a superhero, the lead singers of Milkshake gave a shout out to all of our participants, Liz Scott from Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation shared Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand, and Mikayala Andrews (ALSF Hero - - and one of ours too!) talked about her winning battle with childhood cancer.

Let's just say... everyone ROCKED.

Then came the spirit rally, where all schools had a chance to show us just how excited they were about the project. There were skits, songs, poems, dances, cheers, and whole lotta yellow. While everyone did a fantastic job, these schools nabbed lemon spirit awards this year:

Fox Township Elementary
National Dali High School
Moreland Hills Elementary
Phoenixville Area High School
Fernwood Avenue Middle School

We also had a chance to view the 2011 MAKE A DIFFERENCE COMMERCIAL CONTEST entries. Click here to view and vote for your favorites. The video with the most 'likes' by midnight (EDT) on Thursday, May 19, 2011 wins.

Don't forget to submit your poster contest entries by May 13th... and to report your daily lemonade sales through our online form. And upload your photos to our Picassa album!

Did you miss our kick off? Check out the archived webstream below!

Moreland Hills Elementary is READY for AVLS 2011!

2011-05-06T07:17:00.001-07:00

Our friends at Moreland Hills Elementary have designed some fabulous posters and t-shirts for their Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand 2011 Project! Here's what some of their students are saying:

We are making posters to put up around our school- Max
We are working hard to get ready for our lemonade stand-Steve
We have an awesome, awesome jingle-Abby
We are happy that we're helping kids who have cancer-Elise

Getting out the dye... but not for eggs!

2011-04-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

Preparation for the virtual lemonade stand project has moved in to high gear! With Easter break on the horizon, teachers at Fox Township Elementary School thought it would be fun to break out the dye, but not for Easter eggs! Students and teachers got into the spirit by tie-dying t-shirts instead.

Teachers had already decided to ask everyone to wear yellow for the kick-off on May 6th, but soon realized that yellow shirts are few and far between. Someone had the brilliant idea to tie-dye shirts with the students instead. We decided to use the color yellow to represent the lemonade theme and gray for brain cancer, in honor of our local inspiration for this event. Lucky for us, we have some resident tie-dying experts, as the kindergarten students learned about properties of fabric and tie-dying earlier in the year as part of a science module. We were also fortunate to have two high school students, Abby & Olivia, as our “traveling tie-dying team.” As part of a community service project, they volunteered to visit each classroom to assist in dying the shirts. To say everyone had fun would be an understatement! Students and teachers are excited about their work and can’t way to show off their lemonade inspired t-shirt creations at kickoff!

Post Contributed by Amanda Vollmer, Teacher at Fox Township Elementary.

Fox Township Students are Getting "Sour" for Alex's Lemonade!

2011-04-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

The faculty and staff at Fox Township Elementary School are busily preparing for the upcoming Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand project. This cause is near and dear to our hearts, as we lost one of our kindergarten students to pediatric brain cancer this February. We will be wearing yellow in his honor at the May 6th kick-off event and just found out that we will be VJs for this event as well. How exciting!

Although the project hasn’t officially been announced to students and families, we anticipate a positive reaction from the community. One of our school families has a lemonade stand that we will be using throughout our event, so that should add to the excitement. In addition to the video conferences, classrooms will be participating in the poster contest and the 5th graders will be using their Flip cams to create a commercial to submit. The teachers will get in on the act with a “Sour Face Contest.” We will take pictures of any teacher that wants to participate and they’ll be showing off their very best “Sour Face.” People will be able to vote for the best sour face by placing pennies in the container for their favorite face. We will then announce the winning teacher at the VC on the 20th.

The lemonade stand itself will be up and running during 4 different days for lunch here at school and also during our evening family book fair on May 10th. Student, parent, and teacher volunteers will be in charge of helping with the distribution and lemonade sales. Our hopes that are through this fundraising event we can raise both money and awareness for childhood cancers so that a cure will be found!

Post Contributed by Amanda Vollmer, Teacher at Fox Township Elementary.

Image Credit

Milkshake wants ALL Virtual Lemonade Stand Project Kids to know...

2011-03-29T07:09:00.001-07:00

That they are SUPERHEROES.

The Grammy-nominated band MILKSHAKE will have a special message for all project participants during our kick-off event on May 6th and have given use of their song Superhero for our 2011 project theme. Check it out!

Have you registered yet? More info about the 2011 Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Project -- including how to register -- can be found on the MAGPI website.

Announcing Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand 2011

2011-01-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

When life gives you lemons... make lemonade! Inspired by the journey of Philadelphia-area hero Alex Scott, the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Project celebrates the idea that just one kid can make a difference. Join schools from around the world to raise awareness and money for pediatric cancer research, all while participating in standards-based projects that make the process both inspiring and fun. It's all about kids helping kids - - and we want you to get involved!

As part of this two week program, each participating school will hold their own lemonade stands to help raise funds for pediatric cancer. Schools can hold one big lemonade stand day or a series of lemonade stand events throughout the two weeks. They will be able to communicate and interact with one another through a project blog, student-created videos, poster contest and special videoconference events!

Alex's Lemonade Stand is a national organization with Greater Philadelphia roots. The organization grew out of the front yard lemonade stand started by Alexandra “Alex” Scott, a pediatric cancer patient. In 2000, at the age of four, Alex opened her first annual lemonade stand with high hopes of raising money for pediatric cancer causes. Every year thereafter, Alex held an annual lemonade stand in her Pennsylvania front yard and inspired others to donate money to her cause.

Project Timeline

Online Registration Open: Now through April 15, 2011 
Make a Difference Commercials Due: May 3, 2011*
Videoconference Testing: April 18 - 29, 2011
Kick-Off Virtual Pep Rally: May 6, 2011 from 11:00 AM EDT - 12:00 PM EDT via videoconference 
Lemonade Stand Projects: May 6 - May 19, 2011
Poster Competition Entries Due: May 13, 2011*
Wrap-Up Celebration Videoconference: May 20, 2011 from 11:00 AM EDT - 12:00 PM EDT via videoconference

Requirements for participation? All you need is a H.323 videoconference gear.

More information and registration can be found on MAGPI's website. Please note that registration closes on April 15th!

Hope you join us!

Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand, Week 2!

2010-05-11T07:12:00.001-07:00

Can you believe we're more than half way through our 2 week project?? And we're completely in awe of everyone's lemonade spirit! Just look at the grins on the faces of the students at Cuyahoga Valley Career Center in Ohio. Their stand brought in $470.00 for pediatric cancer research!

The students at Moreland Hills Elementary are still going strong. During day two of lemonade sales, they sold more than 1200 cups of lemonade! That's $649.85 for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation! Here's what they wrote about their second day of fundraising:

It was hot on the playground today! The temperature was around 80 degrees and we got very busy! As soon as each grade level came out for recess, they rushed to buy tickets. Soon there were long lines and we were selling lemonade faster than we could make it. It was tiring but we knew we made a lot of money that day, so we were really excited.

And Hopewell Memorial Junior High School has reported an additional $48.75 in lemonade sales -- bringing our grand reported total to $4823.89. And most schools still haven't reported yet! Don't forget to report through our online form. And tomorrow is the last day to get us your photos and video for the 2010 Project Highlights video. Check out instructions for submitting media.

School Updates!

2010-05-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

Wow! We are closing in on the end of Week One for Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand 2010. Can you believe it?

Our schools have been up to some GREAT things! Hopewell Elementary School sold lemonade during their three lunch periods today. A cup of lemonade was sold for $1.00, and many students donated more than a $1.00 for the cup of lemonade. Some students wore yellow, and everyone that donated received a sticker that read, "I supported Alex's Lemonade Stand." They also had parent volunteers helping! They sold 285 cups of lemonade and raised $332.68. It was a great start to their two day lemonade stand!

Hopewell Memorial Junior High School is having a great week, too. They had a '2 for Tuesday' deal where every cup purchased for $1 came with a free refill. They also had a Cinco de Mayo special during lunches on Wednesday. Their total for Tuesday and Wednesday? 140 cups and $100.15!

On May 1, 2010 4th grade students from South Lebanon Elementary School hosted an Alex's Lemonade Stand at their school's Fun Fair. Students signed up to work 1/2 hour shifts during the Fun Fair. They sold 350 cups of lemonade. Their stand raised $642 and their PTP matched the earnings for a grand total of $1284.

Our grand reported total so far is $3,655.29. Have you reported your school's events yet through our online form?

A friendly reminder that poster contest entries are due tomorrow! And don't forget to take a look at the Make a Difference Commercials!

Picture of students from Hopewell Elementary School.

Soliciting Donations On The Streets in Taiwan

2010-05-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

As the school bell rang, we carried our schoolbag and our student-created products to Yi Chuan Street, which was always filled with students. YES ! We were about to begin the fundraising for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. We started the charity bazaar at six p.m. and ended at ten p.m. We peddled along the street. Some people stopped and took a look at our things, but some just walked away. We had to humbly ask if he or she had time .And then, we introduced our things to them. Whether the people bought our items or not, we all said "thank you” to them! It was very tiring after the fund soliciting. However, with the thought of helping numerous people, I would put my tiredness behind! During the entire fundraising event, I learned many things. For example, I have learned about responsibility and rebuilding confidence after being rejected. I hope everyone can send out their love to help more people around the world !!!

Contributed by Peggy Ro (National Dali High School, Taiwan)

Hello from Moreland Hills Elementary!

2010-05-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

Hello from Moreland Hills Elementary in Pepper Pike, Ohio!

It is our first day and we did a good job! We raised $209.21. The weather was sunny! We were surprised that a lot f kids brought in money. We used Country Time like Alex did. We are having a raffle too. If your number gets picked, you win an Alex's Lemonade Stand T-shirt. Pink lemonade was popular. We had a fun time!

From Sejal and Brooke

Hello from Hopewell Elementary!

2010-05-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hello from Hopewell Elementary!

We are students Brandon and Cora from Hopewell Elementary School. We just wanted to let you know on the blog that we are going to have our lemonade stand this Thursday and Friday. We will sell lemonade for $1.00. We will be all be wearing yellow and one of our teachers will be face painting lemons on our cheeks.

We are so glad to be representing our school for this cause!

Brandon and Cora
2nd grade

Take a look at what schools are doing!

2010-05-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

Photos of Hopewell Elementary School students showing off their lemonade spirit were just added to the online photo album- - isn't it cool to look at the map view and see pictures of lemonade stands in PA and Taiwan? Make sure you upload your pictures today!

We've heard from two more schools: KD Markley Elementary in Malvern, Pennsylvania and Corwin International Middle School in Pueblo, Colorado. Students at KD Markley Elementary took 477 orders for pretzels and lemonade - - which they will deliver on Thursday. That's $477 for Alex's Lemonade Stand! Corwin International Middle School raised $1,016 by holding a car wash and lemonade stand for five hours. That brings our total reported amount of total funds raised to $1,729.25! Great job everyone!

Top 10 Things YOU Can Do to Make a Difference During our 2 Week Project

2010-05-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

Share this project with EVERYONE you know! Ask them to come and support your lemonade stand.

Report your activities, the cups of lemonade you sold and how much money you raised EACH DAY you have a lemonade stand through our online google form! Just click on the link on our project website.
BLOG! Have a student in your school write a blog entry for us to post on our project blog. Just email it to Heather Weisse Walsh at hweisse@magpi.net.
Share Alex’s story with your friends and family members.
Vote for your favorite “MAKE A DIFFERENCE” commercials on YouTube by 'liking' them - - -and share the link with everyone in your school community!
Enter our Poster Contest! Each school can submit ONE entry - - and they are due via email to Heather Weisse Walsh by MAY 7, 2010. Our University of Penn volunteers will be evaluating them. Visit the project website to download the rules and check out the evaluation rubric.
Visit the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation website to read more about the Foundation heroes and their families - - that’s who we’re doing all of this work for.
Make YOUR lemonade stand AMAZING! Think of fun and creative things you can do to get your entire school and community involved in your project. Check out some of the fantastic stands in our online photo album!
Remember, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. You might hit some bumps along the way throughout this project - - but every bump is an opportunity.
Have fun! One kid can make a difference - - and have fun in the process.

We've already heard from our friends at Hopewell Memorial Junior High School about their project. They sold lemonade at a 7-8th grade dance. They put a glow stick in each cup to make them more attractive to their buyers. It worked! They've also sold lemonade and raffle tickets for a "Alex's Lemonade Stand" teddy bear during lunches. They had to purchase the supplies from their food service and give them 25% of the profit to be permitted to sell during lunches. Congrats to this fantastic group of students - - who have sold 335 cups of lemonade and raised $236.25 for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation!

And the Kick-Off Videoconference archive is NOW POSTED on iTunes. Enjoy!

Image is of National Dali High School during the Kick-Off Videoconference - - one of our Lemonade Spirit Award winners!

What a FANTASTIC Kick Off!

2010-05-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

On Friday, April 30th, we kicked off the 4th Annual Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand with 16 schools across the US and Taiwan. Students from The Haverford School's Student News Team mc'd the one hour interactive videoconference, which featured presentations by Liz Scott from Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, Cameron Robertson (one of the Foundation's heroes), and all of the participating schools.

Congrats to the following schools who won Lemonade Spirit Awards for their outstanding pep-rally presentations!

Fernwood Avenue Middle School
National Dali High School
Corwin International Middle School
K. D. Markley Elementary
Moreland Hills Elementary

If you're a registered participant of the project, please remember to report your activities through our online google form every day you host a stand or other program! And please upload photos to our online album, too!

Miss the program? Catch the archive on iTunes University. It will be up on Monday, May 3rd!

The 2010 Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand MAKE A DIFFERENCE COMMERCIALS are now posted!

2010-04-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

We've just posted the 5 entries for our Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand MAKE A DIFFERENCE Commercial Contest on YouTube!

How can YOU make a difference? Take a look at what students from Moreland Hills Elementary School, Corwin International Middle School, Hopewell Elementary School, and KD Markley Elementary School had to say.

While you can view the videos from this webpage, you can only rate them by going to the YouTube Playlist. Please rate the videos based on how they responded to the question: What Can YOU Do to Make a Difference? The top-rated video will be featured in our closing celebration videoconference!

MORELAND HILLS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

NATIONAL DALI HIGH SCHOOL

HOPEWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

CORWIN INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE SCHOOL

KD MARKLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Guess what? Our Kick-Off Videoconference is TOMORROW!

2010-04-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

We're looking forward to seeing you and your students during tomorrow's Kick-Off Videoconference for Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand! Our program will begin promptly at 11:00 AM and all sites should be connected by 10:40 AM EDT. If you're not an interactive videoconference participant, don't worry! We'll have the archive up on iTunes as a podcast by the end of the day.

During tomorrow's event, we will hear from Liz Scott (Alex's Mom) from Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, and childhood cancer survivor and Foundation hero Cameron Robertson. Liz Scott will also be doing a special reading of "Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand" and you will have a chance to view the "Make A Difference" Commercial Contest entries!

Remember, each school will have 45 seconds to shine during our virtual spirit rally - - so be ready! We will be calling on schools in alphabetical order during this portion of the videoconference. Please be ready and in place to present BEFORE we call on your school (this means student presenters should be next to the microphone with the camera framed on them before we call on your school - - all you should need to do is unmute!). If you have submitted a commercial, this does NOT count as your spirit presentation. We will still be calling on your school live during the program to introduce themselves. If you are planning to show any multimedia during your 45 seconds, please let us know ASAP.

Do your students have a question about Alex or her Lemonade Stand foundation? Would you like them answered "on air" during tomorrow's videoconference? POST A COMMENT HERE and our VJs will ask them to Alex's mom during the program.

Keep your students engaged during the videoconference by playing our kick-off videoocnference SCAVENGER HUNT! We've posted the scavenger hunt workshop (and corresponding teacher key) on the project website. Before the closing videoconference, have students use their answers to create individual lemon bingo boards (also on the website). We'll be calling out squares during our closing videoconference - - first student to make an L in your classroom, wins!

Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Team Wins Penn's Models of Excellence Award

2010-04-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

On Friday April 6, 2010 the Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand team at the University of Pennsylvania was awarded a Models of Excellence Honorable Mention Award. Introduced in 1999, the Models of Excellence Award program recognizes notable staff member accomplishments at Penn that reflect initiative, leadership, increased efficiency and a deep commitment to service.

The Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Team at Penn collaborates each year for the past four years with the Lower Merion School District and with the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation in a two-week project to raise money for pediatric cancer research. The Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand Team at Penn is led by Heather Weisse Walsh, Manager of Educational Services at MAGPI, who each year manages the technical and organizational details to allow for schools across the U.S. and the world to participate in the program through interactive videoconferencing and web streaming. In addition, the event incorporates different fun programs and contests to encourage student involvement and to promote a sense of community spirit. Kids around the world from kindergarten through high school raised a total of $24,000 last year, and over $60,000 over the past three years by hosting lemonade stands and holding other fundraising events.

The Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand project consists of several components that make this exciting annual service project engaging for all involved. The special kick-off videoconference includes a Lemon Spirit Rally Contest where schools show off their “lemony-ness” in performances from step teams to dramatic presentations, to original rap songs, etc. The school with the most “lemonade spirit” during the videoconference wins the Spirit Award. Use of a blog encourages schools and students to share their fundraising ideas and successes and provides ongoing updates on the amounts raised. The “Make A Difference” Commercial Contest gives students an opportunity to think about how they can make a difference in their community and then express that though the use of digital media by creating a 45 second "commercial spot." The Lemonade Stand Poster Contest helps students get the word out about their fundraising projects. Lemonade Bingo helps little ones stay engaged during the videoconference events by getting them involved in a scavenger hunt game which results in a unique lemonade bingo board. The Wrap-Up Project Collage Videoconference Event is a celebration of each school’s accomplishments.

The end result of the two week project is a highly successful event that has raised money for the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, a national organization with Greater Philadelphia roots, that grew out of the lemonade stand started in 2000 by then four-year-old Alex Scott shortly after she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma cancer. She wanted to raise money for pediatric cancer with the hope of finding a cure. Alex held an annual lemonade stand in her front yard until she died four years later. Her story has inspired many and their contributions to the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation have raised more than $10 million for childhood cancer research. Much of the money has been raised in small amounts during the past 10 years through many “grass roots” efforts across the country and around the world like those of the award-winning Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand project.

For the last three years, the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand project has raised over $60,000 and has become a "Top 100" lemonade stand for the Foundation. “Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation has been honored to partner with MAGPI since 2006,” says Gillian Kocher, spokesperson for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. “The Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand Project, which brings schools across the country together as they host lemonade stands for pediatric cancer, has raised an innumerable amount of awareness, teaching the important lesson that you are never too young to start making a difference. In addition, the funds raised through this unique virtual connection of schools has placed the MAGPI Virtual Project among the top 100 fundraisers! ”

For information on this year's Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand project see the project website at http://magpi.net/Community/Programs/Alexs-Virtual-Lemonade-Stand.

For more information on the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, please visit http://www.alexslemonade.org/.

Hello from National Dali High School!

2010-04-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

We are students of National Dali High School in Taiwan. We have conducted a fundraising in our school, held fairs with other schools in Taiwan, solicited donations on streets, and also collaborated with Folsom Lake College as well as Princeton Elementary School via video conference. We offered lemonade, lemon-flavored bread and some students-created products in our school to encourage students to donate their pocket money and pay forward Alex’s dream of helping children with cancer. The products, including T-shirts, stickers, and pins are all designed by students of NDHS. All the donations will be made to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation as well as our previous projects (helping Haiti and victims of Morakot typhoon in Taiwan), namely our “Three In One” project.

Contributed by Vicky Yang, National Dali High School.

Show off your Lemonade Spirit!

2010-04-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

On Friday, April 30, 2010 we are kicking off the 4^th Annual Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand project! Did you know that it’s also the 10^th Anniversary of Alex’s first lemonade stand? So get ready - - we’re going to be celebrating the number 10, too!

During our spirit rally, your students are going to have 45 seconds to introduce yourselves. This is your time to show us your LEMONADE SPIRIT! We’ll be awarding 5 spirit awards - - do your students have the most spirit? Your introduction should include the name of your school, your location, and why you are participating in this project. In previous years, we’ve had costumes, songs, quick dramatic skits and more - - be CREATIVE!

Please note that if your school is planning to do a cheer, it’s very difficult for the other schools to understand when students are screaming (and of course, they’re going to do that because they are excited!). So please practice your “indoor voices” cheers so we can understand you!

So, why ARE you participating in this project? Let's start the conversation on the blog... if you're a participant in the project, please share!

Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Commercial Contest

2010-04-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

Alex made a difference in her community by helping others with the simple idea of a lemonade stand—we want your students to think about what they can do to make a difference in their community. Challenge your students to reflect on the statement: How Can I Make a Difference and then use digital tools to create a 45 second commercial video. We know 45 seconds isn’t long - - but it’s about the time to takes on an elevator and sometimes that’s all the time you have to convince someone! Each school is eligible to submit one commercial entry.

Make a Commercial. We realize that there are a lot of digital tools available to create a commercial! Your final submitted video must be saved as either QuickTime .MOV, Windows .AVI, or .MPG files— these are the most common formats and they work well within the YouTube system. We specifically recommend the MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format at 640x480 resolution with MP3 audio. Resizing your video to these specifications before uploading will help your clips look better on YouTube.

Upload Your Commercial by April 28th! After your commercial is produced, upload it to Google Docs (you’ll need a Google Account). Please name your file “SCHOOL NAME - ALEX LEMONADE VIDEO.” Once it’s uploaded, click on the file and then click “share.” Please share your video with mdknight@gmail.com. We will post all of the videos on MAGPI K20’s YouTube channel on April 29th. If you need help with this process, please email mknigh@magpi.net.

Rate the Commercials! After MAGPI has uploaded all of the commercials to MAGPI’s YouTube channel, we will send out the link (and post it on the blog), so you can share invite students, colleagues, friends and family to view and rate the commercials. You may even want to have your class view all of the commercials in class and rate them as a class! We’re asking everyone to rate the videos based on the question “How well does the video answer the question: how can I make a difference?” The commercial with the highest rating will be played during our wrap-up videoconference!

Need some inspiration? Take a look at the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation Video about Alex!

Annoucing our 2010 Project!

2010-02-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

When life gives you lemons... make lemonade! Inspired by the journey of Philadelphia-area hero Alex Scott, the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Project celebrates the idea that just one kid can make a difference. Join schools from around the world to raise awareness and money for pediatric cancer research, all while participating in standards-based projects that make the process both inspiring and fun. It's all about kids helping kids - - and we want you to get involved!

As part of this two week program, each participating school will hold their own lemonade stands to help raise funds for pediatric cancer. Schools can hold one big lemonade stand day or a series of lemonade stand events throughout the two weeks. They will be able to communicate and interact with one another through a project blog, student-created videos, poster contest and special videoconference events!

Alex's Lemonade Stand is a national organization with Greater Philadelphia roots. The organization grew out of the front yard lemonade stand started by Alexandra “Alex” Scott, a pediatric cancer patient. In 2000, at the age of four, Alex opened her first annual lemonade stand with high hopes of raising money for pediatric cancer causes. Every year thereafter, Alex held an annual lemonade stand in her Pennsylvania front yard and inspired others to donate money to her cause.

So register now! And join us in our quest to make a difference.

Project Timeline

Online Registration Open: Now through April 15, 2010 
Make a Difference Commercials Due: April 28, 2010*
Videoconference Testing: April 19 - 23, 2010
Kick-Off Virtual Pep Rally: April 30, 2010 from 11:00 AM EDT - 12:00 PM EDT via videoconference
Lemonade Stand Projects: April 30 - May 13, 2010
Poster Competition Entries Due: May 7, 2010*
Wrap-Up Celebration Videoconference: May 14, 2010 from 11:00 AM EDT - 12:00 PM EDT via videoconference

Required Project Components:

Create a Lemonade Stand Project: Schools participating in this project will have 2 weeks to host an Alex's Lemonade Stand. Sites can have a one-day lemonade stand fundraiser or hold a stand every day for a week - - or some other combination. After each day of sales, please head the MAGPI website and complete an online record form so we can keep track of how the entire project is doing. Each participating school will receive a package of resources from Alex's Lemonade Stand, including: return envelopes, banners, thank you notes, stickers (I support Alex’s Lemonade Stand), newsletter, and brochures.

Participate in the Kick-Off Virtual Spirit Rally and Celebration Videoconferences: These multisite videoconference events are how we bring everyone around the world together to share their projects! During each program, your school will have time to share a brief presentation. The first videoconference is our spirit event, so your school has 30 seconds to show their lemonade spirit, introduce themselves and share why they’re participating in the project. During the celebration videoconference, schools will have one minute to share their projects. We encourage creativity in project presentations! Both programs will also involve special guests.

Special Optional Projects:

Enter the MAKE A DIFFERENCE Commercial Contest: Alex made a difference in her community by helping others with the simple idea of a lemonade stand—we want your students to think about what they can do to make a difference in their community. Challenge your students to reflect on the statement: How Can I Make a Difference and then use digital tools to create a 45 second commercial video. We know 45 seconds isn’t long - - but it’s about the time to takes on an elevator and sometimes that’s all the time you have to convince someone! Each school is eligible to submit one commercial entry. Please note that commercials are due on April 28, 2010.

Enter the Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand Poster Contest: The best way to sell lots of lemonade is to get the word out! What better way then through posters? Each school that participates in the poster contest project should conduct a school-wide 'lemonade sale poster' contests. The top scoring poster entry at each school should then be submitted to the national contest. National poster entries need to be photographed and scanned as .jpeg images. We’ll post all of the entries on the project blog and the winning entry will be featured on the Alex's Lemonade website! Posters are judged on a rubric system by volunteers from the University of Pennsylvania. Please note that poster entries are due on May 7, 2010.

Be a VJ: We are looking for a school to be our virtual host for the kick-off virtual pep rally and the closing celebration event. Host sites will be responsible for working with the project coordinator from MAGPI to develop a script for each event, and to provide student anchors/commentators. VJ schools will introduce each guest speaker and school before their presentation. We have a sample script that sites can use a reference from previous years’ projects. Interested? Send an email to Heather Weisse Walsh at hweisse@magpi.net.

Blog about the Project: We would love for your students to be project bloggers during the event. Your students can either contribute to the project blog or write for your own school blog and we'll link to it. Simply send an email to Heather Weisse Walsh at hweisse@magpi.net to let us know you're interested in blogging. Bloggers will be responsible for reaching out to participating schools to get information about their projects as well as chronicling what their own schools are doing throughout the project.

Participate in Lemonade Bingo: Looking for a way to keep your students (especially younger ones) engaged throughout the entire videoconference kick-off and wrap-up? Play lemonade bingo! We'll create a scavenger hunt workshop that students can complete while viewing the kick-off videoconference. They then use their answers to complete a unique lemonade bingo board - - and we'll call out squares during the celebration videoconference! You may want to have a small prize for the first person to win 'bingo' in your classroom!

Thank YOU for a great 2009 Project!

2009-04-07T13:31:00.001-07:00

Many, many thanks to all of the students and educators who made this year's Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand such a success! The totals raised announced during the videoconference, combined with what was reported through the website by individual schools, exceeds $24,000! AMAZING!

The closing videoconference, in its entirety, is now posted on MAGPI's iTunes University site. You'll need to have iTunes installed on your computer in order to view.

We wanted to share the winning poetry and poster contest entries with you as well. Congratulations to the following winners:

Winning HIGH SCHOOL Poster: National Dali High School, Taiwan

Winning MIDDLE SCHOOL Poster: Fernwood Avenue Middle School

Winning ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Poster: Hopewell Elementary

Winning Poetry Entry:
We are Kids Who Will Make a BIG Difference
Ms. Musone's Class, Roundtown Elementary School

We are kids, third grade students at Roundtown Elementary School.

We are little kids with big behaviors. We are polite, responsible, outstanding, understanding, and dependable. We are kids who donated food to the Catholic Harvest Food Pantry for people who can’t afford food.

We will set up a lemonade stand in our cafeteria.
We will collect school supplies to give the children in Iraq.

Paper.
Pencils.
Markers.
Crayons.
And more.

We will feel proud that we made a difference by helping others feel more comfortable.

We have pride for Alex because she was only four and she made a HUGE difference in our country.
Alex inspired us to make a difference.

We can and WILL make a difference.
You can make a difference too!
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

More great things! And don't forget to VOTE!

2009-04-01T11:43:00.001-07:00

We keep hearing about some amazing things happening at the schools participating in the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand project! We've listed school updates below and pictured students from David City Elementary above!

Don't forget to VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE POEM! (Voting closes tonight!) And that today is the last day to submit poster contest entries.

Here are the latest fundraising reports:

Bonnie Holland Elementary : $764
Career Institute of Technology: $920.93
Cynwyd Elementary School: $325
David City Elementary: $423.36
East Stroudsburg High South: $554.00
Huntington Elementary: $1108.56
K. D. Markley Elementary: $500.00
Kutztown Middle School: $54.42
Leola Elementary: $563.03
National Dali High School: $6100
Penns Valley Intermediate School: $863.33
Trinity Catholic: $162.90
Utica Elementary: $1,162.85
Wallenpaupack South Elementary School: $204
West York Area High School: $175
For a grand total (so far) of: $13,881.38!

And here are the latest school updates:

David City Elementary School: Students at David City Elementary School participated in the Lemonade Stand sponsored by the Third Grade. The Lemonade Stand provided an opportunity for students to learn about expenses and profit, while helping a worthy cause. We sold 291 cups of lemonade, and had a profit of $423.36. We learned much more than just about expenses and profits. This has been a wonderful life lesson for all involved!

Career Institute of Technology: Jay Scott visited yesterday and the school was featured in their local newspaper! http://www.express-times.com/

Cynwyd School Putting A Few Twists on ALS!

2009-04-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

Cynwyd 5th graders hosted an Alex’s Lemonade Stand at their BINGO nights. An adorable Alex’s Lemonade Stand bear was also raffled off. In all we raised about $325. All Cynwyd students are raising money by doing random acts of kindness at home. This will conclude with a school assembly and an all-day walkathon.

Wow! Some Amazing Things Happening!

2009-03-31T17:39:00.000-07:00

We've gotten some fantastic school reports earlier this week. Take a look at the totals schools are reporting:

Bonnie Holland Elementary : $764
Career Institute of Technology: $920.93
David City Elementary: $423.36
East Stroudsburg High South: $554.00
Huntington Elementary: $1108.56
K. D. Markley Elementary: $500.00
Kutztown Middle School: $54.42
Leola Elementary: $378.64
National Dali High School: $6100
Trinity Catholic: $162.90
Utica Elementary: $1,162.85
Wallenpaupack South Elementary School: $204
West York Area High School: $175

.... for a grand total of $12,508.66!

Here are today's school reports:

Huntington Elementary: Huntington students have been selling lemonade and got help from the high school's family life classes who made delicious baked goods to sell with the lemonade.

Career Institute of Technology: Jay Scott, Alex's Dad, spoke at the Career Institute of Technology today. Take a look at their fantastic blog! They have some great photos up.

K.D. Markley Elementary: KD Markley Elementary School raised approximately $500 selling raffle tickets to win a chance to throw a whipped cream pie in a teacher’s face! They also made chocolate covered pretzels to sell at tonight's 4th Grade Concert! A picture of K.D. Markley students making chocolate covered pretzels is at the beginning of this post.

National Dali High School (Taiwan): National Dali High School had a three-point connection with Princeton High School/Princeton Elementary School (MN) & K.D. Markley Elementary School, (PA). Real-time bidding took place while NDHS auctioned unique calligraphy bookmarks, Taiwan shirts, Lemonade shirts, Lemonade stickers & badges, LIVE through videoconference and so did Princeton with their Princeton Tiger shirts & hoodies! They have also been working in collaboration with Business, Marketing and Diversity classes of Prof. Bernard Gibson at Folsom Lake College to solicit donations from enterprises in California. Folsom Lake students held creative, interactive lemonade stands while National Dali students performed the art of Chinese calligraphy (translating donors’ names and writing in Chinese calligraphy) and gave traditional musical performances. Both schools videoconferenced and even had a LIVE raffle draw for best-effort awards!

What a GREAT First Week

2009-03-28T05:36:00.001-07:00

We've had a fabulous first week of lemonade stands! Thanks so much to all of the students, teachers, parents and volunteers for their hard work! And thanks to the students at Wallenpaupack Elementary School South for sharing the photos of their lemonade stand (above!).

Don't forget to vote for your favorite "MAKE A DIFFERENCE" poem. As of this morning, 48 people have cast their votes!

Here are the fundraising totals (as reported) for this week:

Bonnie Holland Elementary : $764
David City Elementary: $423.36
East Stroudsburg High South: $554.00
Huntington Elementary: $636.09
Kutztown Middle School: $54.42
Leola Elementary: $237.38
Trinity Catholic: $162.90
Wallenpaupack South Elementary School: $204
West York Area High School: $105

So far, we've raised $3141.15!! That's fantastic! (and we only have 9 out of 38 schools reporting!). Don't forget to submit your daily fundraising totals each time you hold a stand at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade.html.

Here's what schools told us they were up to this week (don't forget to send Heather an email at hweisse @ magpi.net and tell her what you're up to, too!):

Huntington Elementary: Students at Huntington School are definitely putting the squeeze on cancer! Reached their fundraising goal!

Jacob Elementary: Jacob Elementary has been hard at work fundraising. It has been an exciting week--with Friday's pie throwing finale!

Wallenpaupack South Elementary School: The students are very excited! They'll have another stand on Wednesday April 1st along with a Beach Day where students will pay $1.00 to wear beach clothes. If they reach our goal of $350.00 (and it sure looks like they will!), some teachers will be getting whipped cream pies in the face... (Note to Wallenpaupack Students: We would REALLY like to see pictures of
this!!!)

West York Area High School: Unfortunately, they had to postpone their first lemonade stand because of rain - - but they've been collecting donations all the same!

Voting is now OPEN for the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Poetry Contest!

2009-03-27T05:53:00.000-07:00

We've had our biggest turn out YET for the annual Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand "MAKE A DIFFERENCE" Poetry Contest! All of the entries are posted and voting is now open. So click here to vote for your favorite!

A glance at our project so far...

2009-03-25T07:45:00.001-07:00

We're off and running! Thanks to all of the schools who have reported their activities (and fundraising efforts) so far!

Here's what's been reported:

Kutztown Middle School: $13.75
Leola Elementary School: $160.90
Bonnie Holland Elementary: $764.00
East Stroudsburg High School South: $150.00
Trinity Catholic School: $20.00

Our grand total so far? $2456.75!!!! Don't forget, you can report your daily fundraising totals at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade.html.

Here is what schools are up to (and don't forget to send Heather an email with your school updates to be included on the blog!):

Leola Elementary Students are holding lemonade stands done at their homes. They are also collecting online and mail donations.

East Stroudsburg High School South (pictured above) held a "Cooking for a Cause" event and the lemon cake sold for $55!

Roundtown Elementary created a great SMILEBOX Presentation! Take a look!

What a FANTASTIC Kick-Off Videoconference!

2009-03-23T18:20:00.001-07:00

Thanks so much for a GREAT kick-off event today! It was great to see all of you and your schools virtually, and we’re so excited to see what you accomplish in the next two weeks.

We do want to take a minute and apologize for some of the technical issues with the webstream. Unfortunately, Penn Video Network was experiencing server issues during today’s program - - but don’t worry, we captured the program! It will be up, in its entirety, on MAGPI’s new podcast site tomorrow. Once it’s posted, we’ll send instructions for accessing it.

You can report your daily fundraising totals at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade.html. (You’ll see a button in the upper right hand corner that says “submit your daily fundraise report here.”

We will also feature schools on this blog each day. But we can only feature your school if we know what you’re up to!!! So send Heather an email at hweisse @ magpi.net and photos as often as you can.

Tom McGee at Lower Merion School District will be putting together our highlights video this year. We’ll be providing instructions to you for how to get material to him later this week. In order for your school to be included in the highlights piece, we need you to send video/photos - - so be sure to capture everything!

For the closing videoconference, every school will have 45 seconds to show us what you did. It’s your school’s time to shine!!! How did you help put the squeeze on pediatric cancer? We encourage you to be creative in your presentations - - because 40 presentations is a lot! We appreciate the variety of presentations we saw today. If you’re interested in showing multimedia during your 45 seconds, we’ll need you to send it to us ahead of time. If you’re planning to show multimedia, send Heather an email at hweisse @ magpi.net as soon as you know.

AND NOW FOR THE LEMON SPIRIT WINNERS…. Although we were so impressed with everyone’s ‘lemonness’ today, we have to give a special shout out to these schools:

Got their lemon ‘groove’ on: East Stroudsburg Area High School South and Jacob Elementary (Fabulous step team presentations!)
Can’t ‘shake’ their lemonade spirit: Robeson Elementary School (Great dramatic presentation!)
Has spirit all ‘rapped’ up: Kutztown Area School District and David City Elementary (Impressive Raps!)
Fabulous lemon lyrics: North Hills Elementary and Hopewell Elementary (Great original songs!)

Watch the LIVE WEBSTREAM of the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Videoconferences!

2009-03-18T06:57:00.000-07:00

Don't miss out! Both of our videoconference events will be shown LIVE, in their entirety via a Real Player Webstream! For each program, the live link stream will be available at 12:45 p.m. EDT, with content beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT.

Kick-Off Program Link (March 23, 2009):
http://beansidhe.isc-net.upenn.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/alex323.rm

Wrap-Up Program Link (April 3, 2009):
http://beansidhe.isc-net.upenn.edu:8080/ramgen/encoder/alex403.rm

Technical Requirements for getting the RealPlayer stream:

To view the Internet webcast, your computer must have RealPlayer (version 8 or higher). RealPlayer is available for free from http://www.real.com/. Visit this site and follow the instructions to download and install the "RealPlayer - Free" option.

To test RealPlayer on your computer prior to one of the events, click on the link below (or copy and paste it into your web browser) to watch an archived video of commencement exercises from the University of Pennsylvania:

http://beansidhe.isc-net.upenn.edu:8080/ramgen/president/commencement08.rm

If you have technical issues with the live webstream, please send an email to: video @ isc.upenn.edu.

Project T-Shirt Design from National Dali High School

2009-03-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

We thought the t-shirt design that National Dali High School came up with for their Virtual Lemonade Stands was really great! And we thought you might like to see, too!

Look at what's happening at Leola Elementary School!

2009-03-10T06:57:00.000-07:00

The fourth grade “Lemonheads” at Leola Elementary School in Leola, Pennsylvania are excited to be participating in this year’s event. Our focus this year has been service to others and we have been working as a team to achieve this goal. So far this year we have made cards for veterans, helped at home, helped our neighbors, made dog biscuits for the Humane League and most recently collected over 2,000 magazine’s for the Ronald McDonald House. We are working on taking the lemons in the world and making lemonade!

See All Participating Schools

2009-03-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

Attention all participating schools...Have you added your school to the list map? Click on the "add" button and enter your school's information. Feel free to upload an image as well. We look forward to seeing you on here!

Get Your Map!
Powered by Platial

National Dali High School is looking for collaborative partner for their virtual lemonade stand!

2009-03-09T08:26:00.001-07:00

We are very pleased to announce that we are being joined this year from a National Dali High School in Taiwan and they are looking for a few US school partners to hold a virtual lemonade stand via videoconference. If you’re looking for a fun project to do as part of your Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand experience, please get in touch with Mary (contact information below)!

_ _ _ _ _
National Dali High School－Taiwan is holding virtual lemonade stands via videoconferencing! We are inviting you to connect with us, interact with us, and/ or even hold your lemonade stand in collaboration with us! We are holding two virtual stands, which will be at:

1. 9:00 a.m.- 10:30 a.m. (EDT) , Mar. 27 &

2. 7:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. (EDT), Mar. 27

Get the word out! Lemonade stands held simultaneously with cultural interchange and interactions via international videoconferencing will definitely attract many, many customers!

How is our lemonade sold virtually?

National Dali High School students, parents, and teachers are going to interact with U.S. sites by performing traditional arts to raise money for pediatric cancer research. We will be demonstrating the art of Chinese calligraphy (writing Chinese characters upon request; for example, translating donors’ names into Chinese and then writing the calligraphy) as well as giving musical performances with traditional instruments. Students will explain and demonstrate how to make Taiwanese chewy lemonade and also sell unique exclusive items, such as specially designed Taiwan shirts, badges, bookmarks (and other accessories). In addition, we also invited a professional Feng-shui consultant to explain the theory of desirable interior designs/ arrangements and offer individuals suggestions upon request.

By collaborating on these virtual lemonade stands, not only are we attaining the purpose of raising funds for pediatric cancer research; we are also learning ethnic diversity and enhancing cultural interchange through international collaboration!

Contact us now and join this special project of Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand ! (limited number of seats for interactive/ collaborating sites )

Contact Meimei Mary Shih shmeimei@mail.dali.tcc.edu.tw or Brian Lin b763033@ms4.hinet.net

Alex's Lemonade 2009 - Registration Closes on March 2nd!

2009-02-25T12:09:00.001-08:00

We're so excited to announce Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand 2009! Registration closes on MARCH 2, 2009!!

Project Timeline

* Registration: January 23, 2009 - March 2, 2009
* Videoconference Testing: March 12-17, 2009
* Virtual Lemonade Stand Project: March 23 - April 3, 2009
1. Kick-Off Virtual Spirt Festival Videoconference
March 23, 2009; 1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. ET
2. Individual School Lemonade Stands
March 23, 2009 - April 3, 2009
3. Wrap-Up Project Collage Videoconference Event:
April 3, 2009; 1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. ET

Target Age Group: Grades K-12 (special projects for elementary school students, middle school students and high school students).

Requirements for Participation:
There are two ways to participate:

* Interactive Videoconference Sites: All participating interactive sites must have H.323 videoconferencing capabilities and be on the Internet2 network.
* Webstream Participants: Sites without videoconferencing capabilities or Internet2 connectivity can participate by watching the live webstreams and participating in special projects. Just make sure to check the correct level of participation when you register.

Description:

Kids helping Kids Make a Difference! Join other schools across the country as they host lemonade stands to raise money for pediatric cancer research and participate in other related projects. Schools will collaborate with each other through a blog, a special "kick off" videoconference spirit rally and closing project collage videoconference event.

During this two week project, each school will hold their own lemonade stands to help raise funds for pediatric cancer. Schools can hold one big lemonade stand day or a series of lemonade stand events throughout the two weeks. After each day of sales, schools will report their totals through the website. Last year we raised more than $24,000. Think we can double it?

Schools will also have an opportunity to participate in a variety of special projects inspired by the idea of kids helping kids. All projects are tied to Pennsylvania and national standards. Most importantly - - they're fun!

Alex's Lemonade Stand is a national organization with Greater Philadelphia roots. The organization grew out of the front yard lemonade stand started by Alexandra “Alex” Scott, a pediatric cancer patient. In 2000, at the age of four, Alex opened her first annual lemonade stand with high hopes of raising money for pediatric cancer causes, specifically research into a cure. At the time, Alex was receiving treatment at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for Neuroblastoma.

Every year thereafter, Alex held an annual lemonade stand in her Pennsylvania front yard and inspired others to donate money to her cause. After fighting her own battle with cancer for over seven years, she died peacefully at home in August of 2004. At the time of her death, she had raised over $900,000 for pediatric cancer research and, amazingly, was only eight years old. As of January 2006, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation has raised more than $10 million for childhood cancer research.

Some more school reports...

2008-04-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

Hope you're all excited about tomorrow's wrap-up videoconference! Wait until you hear how much we have raised to help fight pediatric cancer!

Here are some of the REALLY COOL things schools have done as part of this project. We can't wait to hear more during tomorrow's event:

Brady Elementary
We sold 576 bottles of lemonade today and had $58.00 in donations. Our students, parents and members of our community really came through and supported Alex's dream.

Bushkill Elementary
We had a larger lemonade stand at our high school play. Students baked "lemony" baked goods in math classes and the parents and faculty donated as well. We were a hit!

Campbell Elementary
We have held two school-wide stands and more students have held a stand in their front yard. We have received numerous donations and expect our total to rise. Our goal is to exceed 1000 dollars!

Charleroi Area Middle School
This is just a quick update on our Lemonade Stand events for your online blog. Last week we held several different events to help raise money. We started selling "Lemon Drops," short messages students could purchase to send to friends or favorite teachers in the April edition of our school newspaper. We also held penny wars. Each homeroom had a jar decorated with their homeroom teacher making their best "sour lemon face." Students put pennies in the jar they wanted to win and quarters, nickels, dimes, and dollars in the jars they wanted to lose. Lastly, we held our 2nd annual Lemon Ball in the school gymnasium on Friday, April 18. Students made a donation to dance, play games, and hang out. We also set up our lemonade stand. We went through 48 gallons of lemonade (donated by our local grocery stores!). All of our events were tremendously successful. We were able to raise $1,695.00! That doesn't even include the money donated to the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation through their gift shop! (We sold Alex t-shirts.) We are so proud to be part of such a special project and helping to cure pediatric cancer one cup at a time!

ELCO High School
ELCO HS will not be participating on Thursday. The conference equipment is in use by another group and our students have missed so much class time we can not afford to take another day out of class. We will be completing our project in May. The students are sponsoring a Cell Phone Day. Students would be allowed to use their cell phones in the hall between classes and at lunch. For this privilege they must buy a lemon sticker in advance. They will also receive free lemonade at lunch on Cell Phone Day if they have their sticker visible. In addition, the students will be soliciting donations from the staff to create a Lemon Tree in the main hall during our Spring Fling week in May.

Fairfield Middle School
We can't sell lemonade because of our health and wellness policy but have sold healthy snacks to raise money!

K. D. Markley Elementary
The total amount KD Markley Elementary School has raised so far is $1484.53 and we still have more money coming in from a student and a business owner.

The money has been raised in a combined effort of numerous events such as:

Wear Yellow and donate a dollar day
2 fourth grader elementary lemonade stands at school functions
Individual lemonade stands at home by some first graders
First graders School store selling items with a lemon theme
A business owner has volunteered to donate an undeclared amount for each "Act of Kindness" lemon that is posted on our walls.

Sinking Springs Elementary
With this amount, it brings our school's total to $1617.27! What an exciting total for our final report. Congratulations to everyone for a job well done!

Poetry Contest Voting OPEN!

2008-04-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

We’re coming to the conclusion of week two of Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand. As of yesterday afternoon, we have raised more than $9,200 to help fund pediatric cancer research! Congratulations! (You can click on the table image below to see the data larger!)

Our poetry contest entries are now up online and voting is OPEN! So VOTE for your favorite - - and make sure your parents, friends, and colleagues vote too! You can access the online voting poll here:

Remember, we want your school to be included in our highlights video! Send us your video footage and photographs! Photos and video are due on MONDAY. Make sure your students aren’t left out!

We can’t wait to see your presentations during next week’s closing celebration videoconference! IF YOUR SCHOOL CANNOT ATTEND THIS CELEBRATION, please let me know by Monday.

Here are some of the GREAT things schools are doing:

EHMIS
On Wednesday, our Superintendent was the guest pourer of our cafeteria lemonade stand. She matched every staff contribution by buying them their second cup! Great day! Today our cafeteria lemonade stand sold Rita's Italian ice cups for $1. Today, its back to lemonade. Today is also our afterschool Lemonade Block party!

Brady Elementary We wanted to let you know that Brady Elementary has held Lemonade Stands the last two Wednesdays. Both days we sold more cups of lemonade than the numbers of kids in our school. Cups were sold for 25 cents and we raise a total of $102.40 so far. Next Wednesday we are selling bottles of lemonade for $1.00 and so far we have 420 bottles ordered.

Kilpatrick Elementary
Individual students have been collecting in their neighborhoods. Our BIG school lemonade stand will be the night of April 24...after the conclusion. We expect to make about $500.

Katy Elementary School
We sold lemonade and Stacy's Pita Chips the night of our 4th grade program. We are continuing to sell chips.

North Central School Today was our first lemonade stand. We have been doing a lot with learning about Alex, the type of cancer she had, other important information. We created a lemonade stand, a lemon tree with lemons for donations, and we also are working on a presentation to give to the whole school. We have a girl who wrote a song, and hosting an elementary coloring contest. We are having a great time with this and are learning a lot!

Schools are doing some REALLY COOL things!

2008-04-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

Welcome to week two of Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand! And I happy to announce that with 10 schools reporting, we have raised $6,923.91already!! It’s been great to hear your stories (check out more school stories below!) about how you’re making a difference. Here's the breakdown:

A few reminders:

The deadline for the poetry contest has been extended. Schools may submit up to 4 poems for consideration. Poems must be received by 5:00 p.m. on THURSDAY, APRIL 17. You’ll be able to access the online voting system for the poems from the website or blog on Friday. (You’ll see a “CLICK TO VOTE” button!”
The deadline for the poster contest has been extended to Thursday, April 17^th as well. Get your poster in by then! Posters will be judged by staff members from the University of Pennsylvania’s ISC department.
Don’t forget to send us your fundraising reports! To report your daily totals, please use the web system (http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade.html) . You should see a button on the right hand side of the screen that says “submit your daily fundraising report.” I cannot guarantee that all totals we receive via email will make it into the system… so many, many thanks in advance for using this system.
And it’s time to start planning your presentation for the wrap-up videoconference!!! Each school will 90 seconds (I know, it’s not a lot of time - - and unfortunately we will need to cut off schools that go over this time frame!) to present your Alex’s Virtual Lemonade stand projects. PRESENTATIONS SHOULD BE CREATIVE! Some ideas that have worked well in the past: songs, skits, news reports, plays, video, etc.
BE INCLUDED IN OUR 2008 HIGHLIGHTS VIDEO!Be SURE to document your schools projects (in both video and photos) so we can include your school in our 2008 highlights video. Email photos/video of your school project to Heather Weisse (hweisse at magpi.net) by MONDAY, APRIL 21. This way, we can make sure your school makes it into our video!

Schools are doing real cool things! Here are the latest school reports:

E. H. Markle Intermediate School
We had the high school cheerleaders come over to the middle school to be guest pourers for our lemonade stand! Lemonade being sold during all lunch shifts. T shirts and paper lemons are also being sold.

Ripley Union Lewis Huntington Elementary
Our Art Enrichment 3rd & 4th grades designed and painted aprons with lemon themes and then held a silent auction that concluded on April 13 when they served lemon desserts and lemonade. The aprons were displayed at the Riverhouse Restaurant for a week and anyone could go in and leave a bid. We had a great time doing it while helping raise money for a wonderful cause and are proud to be a part of the project.

Robeson Elementary
We have had wonderful support throughout our sale! The book that you sent, Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand had circulated throughout our classes and has really brought this amazing little girls story into our students hearts.

Sinking Springs Elementary Sinking Springs Elementary visited all of our 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classrooms last week to share Alex's inspirational story. We held our lemonade stand yesterday and today during lunch periods, and with the generosity of student and staff have raised a total of $1140.68! We will continue to collect donations through the end of the week and let you know what our grand total is. It's been an exciting adventure!

What a great week!

2008-04-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

All,

Hope you’ve had a great first week of “Alex’s Virtual Lemonade Stand!” So far, with only 7 schools reporting, we’ve raised more than $2000! Here are the fundraising totals:

A few reminders:

POETRY CONTEST ENTRIES ARE DUE TODAY!
Instructions for putting together your presentations for the final event will be sent early next week.
POSTER CONTEST: Your school's poster contest entry is due on April 16th!
Record your projects and send us the pictures and video for our highlights video! Material is due on Monday, April 21.

Here are the school reports we’re received so far!

Bushkill Elementary School:

During parent teacher conferences and an arts night we hosted a lemonade stand called The Bushkill Lemon and we also sold "lemony" baked goods.

Cheltenham High School:

Today, we sold lemonade and other lemon goodies. We also sold CHS '08 customized t-shirts and paper lemons for our lemon tree hanging in the main lobby.

E.H. Markle Intermediate School:

We had our school's mascot - a mustang - stop by our lunch shifts as our "guest pourer". The students and staff are buying yellow T-shirts with our Alex's Lemonade Stand logo.

Great Valley Middle School:

Held our first lemonade stand that we held at the Great Valley Middle School Arts Night. Unfortunately the book fair people set up a stand offering FREE brownies and juice……….right next to our stand where we were selling Lemonade and cookies……so we hope our profits will be better next week at the 4th grade chorus concert at KD Markley.

The Lemon Update 2008 #1

2008-04-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

Many many thanks to all of you who made our kick-off event so wonderful yesterday! We were truly inspired by all of the things your schools are doing to make a difference, and hope you are, too!

And we were OVERWHELMED by all of your lemonade spirit!!! GREAT JOB! Here are this year's Lemon Spirit Award winners:

Lots of Lemon-y Enthusiasm: Colonial IU, Bushkill Elementary (you both had great props!)
Amazing Original Lyrics: Cheltenham High School, East Bradford Elementary (Can we get copies of your songs/raps?)
Catchy Commercial: Kilpatrick Elementary
Lemon-y Dramatics : Katy Elementary (we loved the Hannah Montana impression!)
Lemon-y Cheerleaders: Charleroi Area Middle School, Penn Wynne Elementary, Brady Elementary

And, with only four schools reporting so far, we've raised over $600 for pediatric cancer research! Great job everyone!

Don't forget to fill out the online fundraising form each day your school sells lemonade. We'll post the amounts on the blog each afternoon.

TELL US YOUR STORY. Send us your school updates and photos too! (You can always report on what you're doing through the comments section on the daily fundraising form). When you tell us what your school is doing, we can include your school's activities in our daily lemon update!

BE INCLUDED IN OUR 2008 HIGHLIGHTS VIDEO!Be SURE to document your schools projects (in both video and photos) so we can include your school in our 2008 highlights video. Email photos/video of your school project to Heather Weisse (hweisse at magpi.net) by MONDAY, APRIL 21. This way, we can make sure your school makes it into our video!

WATCH YESTERDAY'S PROGRAM: Take a look at yesterday's kick-off videoconference by viewing the webstream: http://commonsvcg.oar.net/MAGPI/. It will be up for two weeks.

POSTER CONTEST: Your school's poster contest entry is due on April 16th! See the guidelines on the project website: http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poster.html

POETRY CONTEST: Your school's poetry contest entry is due on Friday, April 11th! See the guidelines on the project website: http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poetry.html

School Intros: Kilpatrick Elementary School

2008-04-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

Odessa Kilpatrick Elementary School in Katy, Texas has been in existence for 5 years. We have an Australian theme throughout the school. Koalas are our mascots. A couple of years ago we grew so fast that we had the largest population of any elementary school in the entire state of Texas. (Over 1600 students).

The Challenge classes are the ones that are helping with the fundraising. Challenge classes consist of our district identified gifted and talented students. We have 47 students in these classes from K – 5^th graders. Each grade comes to “Challenge” on a different day of the week. These highly creative and energetic kids are motivated to earn money for cancer research. Their teacher, Mrs. Sederholm, enjoys helping out with worthy projects. Her daughter at the age of 13 started a fundraiser in the community which raised $15,000 for an 8th grade classmate. Maya, the daughter, and a friend, organized an event called Dancers against Cancer where 10 local dance companies volunteered their time and put on THE performance of the decade.

Here are a couple of pictures showing students receiving the “Boomerang Award” which is awarded to children who do an exceptional job of following our rules, treating others kindly, and exhibiting the character traits we value.

What a great kick-off event! Some photos....

2008-04-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

School Intros: East Bradford Elementary, Penns Valley Intermediate, Penn Wynne Elementary, Delaware Valley High, Ripley Union, Rock Lake, Charleroi

2008-04-08T04:21:00.001-07:00

East Bradford Elementary School

East Bradford Elementary is located in historic West Chester, Pennsylvania. East Bradford is one of the ten elementary schools in West Chester Area School District. East Bradford has grades kindergarten through fifth.

West Chester Area School District is located in a 75-square-mile suburban, urban, and rural area in central Chester County. West Chester Borough is the hub of the district. The surrounding townships of East Bradford, East Goshen, West Goshen, West Whiteland, Westtown, and Thornbury, all in Chester County, are part of the district, as is Thornbury Township in adjacent Delaware County.

East Bradford is proud to participate in Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. This is the 3rd year we raised money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand. And this will be the 2nd year we will participate in Alex’s Lemonade Stand Challenge, in which fifth grade, third grade, and kindergarten design different lemonade recipes. The students and staff vote which lemonade they like best. Last year we raised over $1,000.00. This year we hope to raise more and promote good citizenship for all students. Together we can make a difference.

Penns Valley Intermediate School

We are looking forward at Penns Valley Intermediate School to hosting our first Alex's Lemonade Stand. PVI is located in the center of Pennsylvania, near Penn State University. We have 235 students in grades 5 and 6. The principal's advisory group is the sponsor of our stand. One student from each homeroom is a member of this group. PVI has also participated in Relay for Life for the past two years.

Penn Wynne Elementary School

Penn Wynne is the home of the original Alex's Lemonade Stand. We are located in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia.

These pictures were taken in front of a mural our art club made in memory of Alex Scott.

Delaware Valley High School

Delaware Valley High School is located in Milford, Pa. We have approximately 2,000 students in our high school alone! We are about a mile from the states of New Jersey and New York, which means we have many students in our school who are originally from larger cities. Our students are both dedicated to academics and other extracurricular activities. This year alone DV had state winners in athletics, music, and other clubs. Our school colors are black and white.

Ripley Union Lewis Huntington School District

The Ripley Union Lewis Huntington School District is located in rural Appalachia on the Ohio River in Ripley, Ohio. We have 1200 students in our school district. We are a Learn and Serve America Model School and we complete several service learning projects each year. We are happy to be a part of Alex's Lemonade Stand. Our students plan to have several fundraisers throughout the two week event. One of our fundraisers include auctioning off yellow aprons that our students are going to hand paint. We are conducting a lemonade and dessert event for approximately 80 people. Ripley students are proud of their heritage which is rich and deeply embedded in the Underground Railroad. Our ancestors helped slaves to freedom and our students want to carry on this wonderful tradition by helping free people of cancer.

Rock Lake School

Our school is a K-12 school in rural North Dakota. We currently have sixty students enrolled in our school. In the third and fourth grade we have 12 students. We were introduced to this project though EduTech and Tabitha Lang. Our students were also learning about donations and helping others when this opportunity came along.

Our plans for the two weeks between April 8^th and April 24^th we will have a coloring contest, researching lemons and lemonade, and finding facts about lemons and lemonade. We will also hold three lemonade stands between the two weeks. The senior class will be donating cookies to sell as well. We received donations from Choice Financial and people in the community for the supplies of our booth. This has become a community project.

Charleroi Area Middle School

Greetings from Charleroi, Pennsylvania! We are students and teachers at Charleroi Area Middle School, located just south of Pittsburgh. This is our second year participating in Alex’s Lemonade Stand and we are so excited to be part of something so worthwhile! Our own Charleroi Cougars will be holding Lemonade Stand events the week of April 14-18, including penny wars, newspaper shout-outs, a poster contest, and of course our Lemon Ball complete with our Lemonade Stand! We wish everyone the best of luck and we are happy to join in the fight again pediatric cancer, one cup at a time!

Leonade Stand Kick's Off With CBS News Anchor

2008-04-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

Larry Mendte, a "hometown guy" whose first job in the news business was delivering the Evening Bulletin as a boy, takes special pleasure in the fact that, as an adult, he is still delivering the evening news in Philadelphia.

One of Philadelphia's most honored broadcasters, Mendte has earned 43 regional Emmy Awards since returning to the Delaware Valley, a record four of them in the "Best Anchor" category. In two recent readers' polls conducted by The Main Line Times and the Delaware County Daily Times, Mendte was voted the area's favorite news anchor. Among his honors, Mendte has been inducted into The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame and was named one of the 75 Greatest Living Philadelphians
by the Philadelphia Daily News.

For Larry's full bio, visit the CBS News Site

School Intros: Emory Markle, Colonial IU, Eastern Lebanon County High School, and Campbell Elementary

2008-04-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

Campbell Elementary

I am a GT facilitator at Campbell Elementary which is located just outside of Houston in Sugar Land, Texas. My fourth grade GT class had begun our “Math Around Town” unit, part of the Texas Performance Standard Project. It is a math based unit that poses real world math application problems. It is a difficult unit but through the use of technology, the kids learn a lot and really seem to enjoy it. We had just begun the unit when the Alex’s Lemonade Stand opportunity came my way, which I previously knew nothing about. After just a little bit of research, I really thought that I could apply the lemonade stand concept to our existing unit, and get a bigger buy-in by my students, and at the same time raise school awareness of childhood cancer. When I posed it to the students, they were immediately on board.

This project has been completely student driven. When they were in the initial brainstorming phase, the students determined that specific roles were necessary. Therefore, we have one project manager and a few supervisory roles. The bulk of the students are in the general workforce. Once those roles were decided upon, the real work began. We have already conducted one stand at our school fundraiser and our second and final stand will be held on April 10th. We are thrilled to be a part of this event and I am most excited about how much my students have learned!

Easter Lebanon County High School

Eastern Lebanon County High School (ELCO) is located in south central Pennsylvania, approximately 25 miles east of Harrisburg. Our school is located in a rural setting between four small towns that comprise our district. The school population at the high school is 850 students in grades 9-12 with a graduating class averaging just over 200 students. Our school mascot is the Raider and our school colors are blue and gold.

Colonial Academy

The Life Skills Support class at Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 services young adults 18-21 years of age. Located at our main administrative office, the students learn functional academic, daily living and work related skills needed to become independent members of their communities. The skills learned in the classroom are applied while making soup and selling snacks throughout the building. All of our students are also involved in outside work experiences in an effort to successfully transition them into a permanent job placement. Our Lemonade Stand for this event was constructed by Alternative Education students who attend our Colonial Academy.

Emory H. Markle Intermediate School

EHMIS is a middle school located in Hanover, PA. We are the colts. We have about a 1000 students in grades 6 to 8. We are very active in the community and like to try to help however we can. We are excited to be able to help Alex's Lemonade to fight childhood cancer.

Questions for Liz Scott? And a great new blog from the "kidz" at K.D. Markley!

2008-04-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is getting excited about our kick-off videoconference on Tuesday! Would your students like the opportunity to ask Liz Scott a question during our kick-off videoconference celebration? If so, please submit up to 5 questions via email to me (hweisse at magpi.net) by 8:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, April 4, 2008. We’ll select up to 5 sites to ask one question as part of our kick-off videoconference event! Sites who are selected to ask questions will be notified via email on Monday.

And many thanks to all the great students at K. D. Markley Elementary School in Malvern, Pennsylvania! They set up a fantastic blog for their school's lemonade stand project - - all dedicated to "Kidz helping Kidz!" Looks like their school lemonade poster contest is going great -- and we can't wait to hear the "Lemonade Flo!" We're also looking forward to reading more about the acts of kindness that K. D. Markley students are doing.... GREAT JOB!

We're getting ready for our kick off next week!

2008-04-02T09:49:00.001-07:00

Hope everyone is excited about the kick-off for Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand next week! We're thrilled that thirty-one schools will be joining us for the project this year! We have schools from Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, North Dakota, New York and Michigan participating!

New this year is the virtual scavenger hunt that will take place during the kick-off videoconference. Be sure to download the scavenger hunt worksheet from the project website
(the handout will be available on Monday, April 7th!) and distribute it to all the participating students. Then, have students pay careful attention to other school's introductions during the spirit rally and complete the scavenger hunt! Using the answers from the scavenger hunt, students will be able to create their own personalized "lemon" bingo boards to use during our closing videoconference event.

Speaking of the kick-off event, have you prepared your school's introduction yet? Remember, your school will have 30 seconds to introduce themselves as part of the kick-off videoconference. Here are the instructions for the 30 second intros:

Your school will have 30 seconds to introduce yourself - - no more.
Make sure to tell us your school's name, where you are located, why you are participating in this project and an interesting fact about your school or community - MAKE THE INTRODUCTIONS CREATIVE
Interactive videoconference participants will have an opportunity to share this information as part of the videoconference
EMAIL US a brief paragraph about your school and a photo to be included on the project blog! Please email this information to Heather Weisse at hweisse at magpi.net no later than Tuesday, April 8th!

Some other reminders:

POSTER CONTEST: Your school's poster contest entry is due on April 16th! See the guidelines on the project website: http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poster.html

POETRY CONTEST: Your school's poetry contest entry is due on Friday, April 11th! See the guidelines on the project website: http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poetry.html

And, last but not least, have you thought about your lemonade stand and what you'll do for your project?

Schools participating in this project will have 2 weeks to host an Alex's Lemonade Stand. Sites can have a one-day lemonade stand fundraiser or hold a stand every day for a week - - or some other combination. Need ideas? No idea where to start? Download the guide (from the project website!) for setting up events! The guide is in PDF format.

Remember to report your sales totals using the web-based form. The form will be live beginning on April 8th.

That's all for now! Check back on Friday for the kick-off videoconference outline!

Just Announced! New Dates for Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand 2008!

2007-09-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Kids helping Kids Make a Difference! In celebration of Global Youth Services Day, join other schools across the country as they host lemonade stands to raise money for pediatric cancer research and participate in other related projects. Schools will collaborate with each other through a blog, a special "kick off" videoconference spirit rally and closing project collage videoconference event.

Now in it's third year, we're pleased to announce the ALEX'S VIRTUAL LEMONADE STAND will take place from April 8 - April 24, 2008. Visit the website for more details/registration!

Interested in working with us 'behind the scenes?' We're currently looking for educators that want to help coordinate the poster contest, poetry contest, and song showcase. We're also looking for a guest school to perform the "Alex's Lemonade Song" as part of our Kick-Off Spirit Rally. Interested? Please email Heather (hweisse at magpi.net).

We're looking forward to working with all of you again!

The Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Team

What a fantastic two weeks!

2007-04-26T13:56:00.000-07:00

All,

Thanks so much for a wonderful event today! We are all amazed at what you have done... and the total fundraising amount keeps climbing.... we're near $17,000 and counting!

Your special projects and school-wide events were inspiring. You and your students are quite a creative bunch!

The unedited webstream of the event is available for the next few weeks. Click here and scroll down to "Alex's Lemonade."

Regrettably, one school was unable to join us today because of a technical error on MAGPI's part. We are sincerely sorry that Heritage Junior/Senior High School was unable to take part in today's event. You should know that Heritage has done some truly amazing things to help "Make a Difference!" They collected donatins at lunch to help fund the project and sponsored "Hat Days," where students paid $1 for the privilege of wearing a hat during the school day. The created a "Lemonade Lobby" and sold lemons for $1 each to help decorate the lobby. Three classes (Advanced Foods, Geometry and Econ) baked goods for a bake sale. They held their Lemonade Stand on Friday, April 20th in conjunction with the Heritage Relays Track Meet. Hopefully, they had great weather! All in all, Heritage raised $500 to help further Alex's cause. Congratulations, Heritage! Please send us a video of your experiences to post on the website... we'd really love to hear your own words!

After you have counted your donations....

*Convert cash into a check or money order made payable to Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. Keep the checks together in an orderly fashion.

*Send in all of the proceeds to Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation:

ALEX'S LEMONADE STAND FOUNDATION
333 Lancaster Avenue #414
Wynnewood, PA 19096

Please direct any questions about donations to
610-649-3034 or via e-mail at
LisaTowry@alexslemonade.com.

Again - THANK YOU! You truly did make a difference!

Lemoncast Episode 2!

2007-04-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

Check out the latest podcast from Cynwyd School! See what they're up to! Copy and paste this link into itunes to subscribe!
http://lemoncast.mypodcast.com/rss.xml

All are welcomed to send their own podcast to me at mcgeet@lmsd.org

See you on Thursday!

We've almost doubled last year's total!

2007-04-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

We're just two days away from our wrap-up videoconference event! We can't wait to see your school's presentation! Believe it or not, we've almost DOUBLED last year's total!

Send us materials for the highlights video! We'll be putting together a short highlights video to play at the conclusion of the videoconference event. The only way we can include your school is if you send us material! Please send us video clips and photos, student sound bytes, etc. to include. Please email those materials to hlweisse@gmail.com (please do NOT use the hweisse@magpi.net email address). You can also post materials on an FTP site like YouSendIt.Com and invite me to download it. Materials must be received by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, 2007.

Here's the final videoconference agenda:

Opening Remarks	Penn Wynne VJS
Introduction of Congressman Sestak	Penn Wynne VJS
Opening Remarks - Congressman Sestak	Congressman Sestak
School Presentation # 1	Penn Wynne Elementary School
School Presentation # 2	Williamstown High School
School Presentation # 3 (song)	St. Charles Elementary
Poetry Winner #1	TBD
School Presentation # 4	Onekama Middle School
School Presentation # 5 (song)	Avon Grove Intermediate School
Poetry Winner # 2	TBD
School Presentation # 6	Cheltenham High School
School Presentation # 7 (song)	Heritage Jr./Sr. High School
School Presentation # 8	East Bradford Elementary School
School Presentation # 9	Pocono Mountain East High School
Poetry Winner # 3	TBD
School Presentation # 10	Pierremont Elementary School
School Presentation # 11	Charleroi Area High/Middle School
School Presentation # 12	Phoenixville Area Middle School
Poetry Winner # 4	TBD
School Presentation # 13	Delaware Valley High School
School Presentation # 14 (song)	Comanche Elementary School
School Presentation # 15	Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences
Poetry Winner # 5	TBD
School Presentation # 16	Coppin Academy
School Presentation # 17	Squires Elementary School
School Presentation # 18	Cynwyd School
Poster Contest Winner Announced	TBD
Highlights Video	MAGPI (Intro by Penn Wynne VJs)
Wrap-Up	Penn Wynne VJs

Here are the fundraising totals thus far, as reported by some of our schools:

SCHOOL

TOTAL

Cheltenham High School

2,027.00

Comanche Elementary

163.72

Cynwyd Elementary School

1,163.70

East Bradford

1,189.00

Onekama Middle School

209.56

Phoenixville Area Middle School

170.00

Pierremont Elementary

524.84

Pocono Mt. East High School

247.74

St. Charles School

710.93

Squires Elementary

150.00

Williamstown High School

1,701.61

TOTAL

$8,258.10

Remember to submit your daily fundraiser report any day that you sell lemonade!

Don't forget to vote for your favorite poem!
Voting closes on TODAY a 5:00 p.m.

Don't forget abou THE LEMONCAST - - our project Podcast! Have a listen: http://lemoncast.mypodcast.com/index.html. We'd like to invite ALL OF YOU to create a podcast episode (even if you didn't sign up for the Lemoncast Project!). Have your class create a short podcast and email it to Tom McGee at mcgeet@lmsd.org. Tom will upload your LEMONCAST episode to the server. Don't forget to subscribe!

What a fantastic week!

2007-04-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic week! There have been walk-a-thons, carnivals, poetry slams - - and of course, some fabulous lunchtime lemonade stands! We also launched our poetry contest - - and one assistant principal found himself in a sticky situation (duct-tape sticky, that is).

We've also launched the LEMONCAST - - our project Podcast! Have a listen! We'd like to invite ALL OF YOU to create a podcast episode (even if you didn't sign up for the Lemoncast Project!). Have your class create a short podcast and email it to Tom McGee at mcgeet@lmsd.org. Tom will upload your LEMONCAST episode to the server. Don't forget to subscribe!

Here are the fundraising totals thus far, as reported by some of our schools:

Remember to submit your daily fundraiser report any day that you sell lemonade!

Here are some of the great things schools are doing

East Bradford Elementary School: East Bradford held their Lemonade Taste Challenge this week - - and Liz Scott came as a guest!

Cheltenham High School: Thursday's totals reflect money raised through a Poetry Slam (held on March 23rd) and the Cheltenham Educators Association donations.

Cynwyd School: Cynwyd School celebrated "Making a Difference" with a school wide walk-a-thon. All 466 student and their teachers walked the 1/5 mile track for 1/2 hour. Children had done "random acts of kindess" receiving money to donate to Alex's Lemonade Stand. The total raised is not yet know as contributions are still coming in.

Williamstown High School: Students sold lemonade and paper lemons again Thursday during all lunch periods. They can't wait to see our Assistant Princpal Mr. Deal stuck to the wall today! They are selling 1 yard of duck tape for $1. Students hope all that all of the students and staff participate... Pictures will be sent!!
Don't forget to send us pictures and updates about what your school is doing!

Don't forget to vote for your favorite poem!
Voting closes on April 25, 2007 a 5:00 p.m.

Don't forget about upcoming deadlines!

Send us materials for the highlights video! We'll be putting together a short highlights video to play at the conclusion of the videoconference event. The only way we can include your school is if you send us material! Please send us video clips and photos, student sound bytes, etc. to include. Please email those materials to Heather Weisse at hlweisse@gmail.com. You can also post materials on an FTP site like YouSendIt.Com and invite me to download it. Materials must be received by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, 2007.

- The Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Steering Committee

"Make a Difference" Poetry Contest - Voting Now Open!

2007-04-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

The poetry contest is now OPEN! We have some fantastic entries this year! Send the link to all your family, friends, students and colleagues! Voting closes on Tuesday, April 25, 2007.

So far, we've raised $4,177.49 for Alex's project! Here's what's been reported so far:

Remember to submit your daily fundraiser report any day that you sell lemonade!

Here are some of the great things schools are doing

Cheltenham High School: Wednesday, Cheltenham sold cans of lemonade for those very thirsty supporters! The baked goods included lemon squares, lemon cookies and lemon tarts. Their homeroom classes are collecting money in envelopes given out by Student Council. They have lots of very committed students who setup, sell, and cleanup everyday. This endeavor is helping us all!

Don't forget to send us pictures and updates about what your school is doing!

Don't forget about upcoming deadlines!

Lemonade Stand Poster Contest Entries Due TOMORROW. If your school is participating in the Poster contest, entries are due on April 20, 2007. Each school can submit one entry. Rules and more information can be found at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poster.html.

- The Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Steering Committee

Schools are doing some pretty cool things!

2007-04-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

Things seem to be really going well this week and we've been getting reports on some amazing activities you all are doing! Read about them below. And be sure to check your email later today for instructions for next week's celebration videoconference event!

Here are the fundraising totals thus far, as reported by some of our schools:

Can you believe that we've already raised MORE than last year!? $3,597.64! That's incredible!

Remember to submit your daily fundraiser report any day that you sell lemonade!

Here are some of the great things schools are doing

St. Charles School: St. Charles students are hosting a virtual lemonade stand by selling “lemons” Students may write their own names on the lemons; in memory or a loved one; or in honor of someone. These lemons are hung on lemon trees in each wing of the school

One of St. Charles' own is currently undergoing radiation treatment. Yellow and red ribbons are sold for a $1.00 each and tied on the trees outside school in support of our friend Nick. (Yellow representing lemons and red representing Nick’s fantastic red hair… and you thought it was because their school colors are red and yellow!)

East Bradford Elementary School: East Bradford has their "Great Lemonade Challenge" tomorrow! They will have three grade levels competing for who has the best tasting Lemonade. $1.00 for a sampler of three.

Cheltenham High School: Besides selling lemonade, the Cheltenham Educators' Association held a Yellow Day on April 11th. Teachers wore yellow and contributed $5.00 towards Alex's Lemonade Stand. So far, they have collected $630.00 through CEA.

Williamstown High School: On Thursday, Williamstown High School Students took donations for yellow ribbons and received $148.16 in donations. On Friday they sold lemonade, soft pretzels and paper lemons for students to write their messages and names on. They raised $327.62 on Friday. On Monday, they sold lemonade and paper lemons and raised $186.21. So far they have collected $661.99 for Alex! They are looking forward to duck taping our Assistant Principal on Friday! (Williamstown, we want to see pictures of this!)

Don't forget to send us pictures and updates about what your school is doing!

Don't forget about upcoming deadlines!

Poetry Contest Entries Due TODAY! Your school can submit up to three entries for the "Alex's Lemonade Stand Poetry Contest." Entries are due to Heather via email by April 17, 2007. More information can be found at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poetry.html

First Full Week of Lemonade Sales!

2007-04-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

Happy first full week of the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand project! We're absolutely astounded by what your schools are doing and how much of a difference each of you are making. We also celebrate GLOBAL YOUTH SERVICE DAY this week, so please keep that in mind as you are working on this project!

Here are the fundraising totals thus far, as reported by some of our schools:

Remember to submit your daily fundraiser report any day that you sell lemonade!

Because the weather today is so gloomy, we thought it might cheer you up to see what some schools are doing:

Cynwyd Elementary: Last Thursday, Cynwyd School held their first Alex’s Lemonade Stand. 5th grade students worked at the stand in shifts and also served lemonade at the Ice Cream Social held at the same time. We raised $235.25. Adding that to our online donations and classroom Random Acts of Kindness change jars, our total is now $854.35. We have increased our goal from the original 500 to $1,200. Please continue to support Team Cynwyd as we strive to reach our new goal and continue to make a difference!

To make the Cynwyd students aware of the upcoming walk-a-thon, 5th graders have been going into the other classrooms, telling about the Alex’s Lemonade Stand project, reading the book, Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand and explaining the walk-a-thon.

Delaware Valley High School: DVHS students are running a lemonade stand on April 24th at Delaware Valley 9/10 and 11/12 High School, on April 25th at Delaware Valley Middle School, and on April 26th at Delaware Valley Elementary School. We will be holding them during all school lunches as well as collecting donations from all teachers and families in the district.

Avon Grove Intermediate School is hosting a Lemonade Carnival next week from Tuesday, April 24th through Friday, April 27th. We can't wait to see the pictures, Avon Grove!

Don't forget to send us pictures and updates about what your school is doing! We'll post them in our LEMON NEWS and on the blog!

Don't forget about upcoming deadlines!

Poetry Contest Entries Due TOMORROW! Your school can submit up to three entries for the "Alex's Lemonade Stand Poetry Contest." Entries are due to Heather via email by April 17, 2007. More information can be found at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poetry.html

Lemonade Stand Poster Contest Entries Due April 20, 2007. If your school is participating in the Poster contest, entries are due on April 20, 2007. Each school can submit one entry. Rules and more information can be found at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poster.html.

- The Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Steering Committee

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

2007-04-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

Whoa, whoa, whoa!!! Great job everyone! You are all so impressive with what you are all doing! I can't believe the money that was raised in just two days! What a difference you are all making! I was just pondering on some ideas and need some help. Here's my challenge to all of you...If we raised all of the money in the world, would we be able to put an end to pediatric cancer? What would it take?

I'm just gonna leave it at that and open up a discussion. If you comment on this blog, please share your grade level and location. I'm curious to hear of your ideas.

First Day of Lemonade Sales...

2007-04-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of lemonade stands for many schools! Believe it or not, we've collected more than $1000 already! Here's what's been reported so far:

SCHOOL	April 10, 2007	April 11, 2007	TOTAL
Cheltenham High School	$720.00		$720.00
Cynwyd Elementary	$500.00		$500.00
St. Charles School		$107.60	$107.60
			$1,327.60

Remember to submit your daily fundraiser report!

We thought it might be interesting to give you a snapshot of what some schools are doing:

Cheltenham High School has already raised $600 through t-shirt sales (t-shirts were designed by a student) and selling lemons for their lemon tree! Students will be selling lemonade, lemon sticks, lemon squares, lemon cookies and Stacy’s Pita Chips from April 11th to April 25th.

Onekama Middle School will be setting up lemonade stands at lunch, communicating with other groups/schools across the US via the distance learning lab, and also writing to pen pals in Philadelphia. The Student Council members will be visiting classrooms to read a picture book about Alex and her dream to help promote the Lemonade Stands. Here's a photo of students from Onekama during yesterday's event. Check out what Onekama is doing by visiting their website !

Cynwyd Elementary School's first lemonade stand is tonight at 6:30-8pm at Cynwyd School. Their All-School Walk-a-Thon is Wednesday April 18 and they will be selling lemonade from 2:15-2:45pm, on the field. Classes are continually getting pledges for doing Random Acts of Kindness. Cynwyd set-up a First Giving website and has already collected $500 - - before even starting their lemonade stand sales!

Squires Elementary School students thought yesterday's event was "way cool" and are excited to begin their lemonade sales next week!

Penn Wynne Elementary School is waiting to hold their big lemonade stand in June; however, students are collecting soda can tabs for the Ronald Mc Donald House and are participating in the poetry contest, the pen pals, and the blogging!

Don't forget about upcoming deadlines!

Poetry Contest Entries Due April 17, 2007. Your school can submit up to three entries for the "Alex's Lemonade Stand Poetry Contest." Entries are due to Heather via email by April 17, 2007. More information can be found at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poetry.html

Lemonade Stand Poster Contest Entries Due April 20, 2007. If your school is participating in the Poster contest, entries are due on April 20, 2007. Each school can submit one entry. Rules and more information can be found at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade-poster.html.

Kick-Off Event - A Great Success!!

2007-04-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

Today was our Kick-Off Virtual Spirt Festival Videoconference and it was a huge success! Many thanks to all those who participated! Our VJs, Anna and Jake, did a phenomenal job! It was great to hear about Alex from one of the people who knew her best - - her mom, Liz. The Whitehall High School band rocked the "Lemonade" song and we were completely amazed by everyone's Lemonade spirit! Watch the archived video of today's event!

Here are the Spirit Award Winners!

Lots of Lemon-y Enthusiasm: Avon Grove Intermediate School, East Bradford Elementary School, Cynwyd Elementary School
Creative Footwork: Cheltenham High School & St. Charles School
Amazing Original Lyrics: Pocono Mountain East
Catchy Commercial: Phoenixville Area Middle School
Lemon-y Dramatics: Delaware Valley High School
Lemon-y Cheerleaders: Penn Wynne Elementary School & Squires Elementary School
Great School Spirit: Comanche Elementary School, Pierremont Elementary School & Williamstown High School
Fantastic Lemon Shout-Outs: Charleroi High School, Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences, Heritage Jr./Sr. High School, Onekama Middle School

We know that not all of you had a chance to ask questions about Alex, so feel free and ask them here. We'll ask the Scott Family and Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation to check the Blog and respond.

If you have any messages for any of the great schools you saw on today's videoconference, post them here as well!

Again, GREAT JOB Everyone! We're looking forward to a fantastic two weeks!

Students To Take a “Virtual” Stand Against Cancer

2007-04-10T09:22:00.000-07:00

MEDIA ADVISORY:

Students To Take a “Virtual” Stand Against Cancer
Alex's Lemonade Stand Goes High Tech, Videoconference to Link 1500 Students for Virtual Charity Event

WHEN: Wednesday, April 11, 2007, 11am EDT

WHAT: For the first time ever, over 1500 students across the country will be connected using high tech videoconference and networking technology to kick off a national community service event to help fight pediatric cancer.

The event is in support of the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF), a national organization that grew out of the Philadelphia front yard lemonade stand started by Alexandra “Alex” Scott, a pediatric cancer patient. In 2000, at the age of four, Alex opened her first annual lemonade stand with high hopes of raising money for pediatric cancer causes. Every year thereafter, Alex held an annual lemonade stand in her Pennsylvania front yard and inspired others to donate money to the cause. While sadly, Alex lost her battle with cancer in 2004, her work has motivated students around the country to continue her charitable legacy.

“As a grassroots organization dedicated to children, we are always looking for ways to encourage young people to get involved,” said Liz Scott, Alex Scott’s mother and vice president of development for ALSF. “Using technology to allow children to videoconference with each other for a great cause is an exciting new way to further the awareness of childhood cancer.”

Over 19 schools are involved in the event from across the country and will be lead by Penn Wynne Elementary School in Lower Merion, PA where Alex attended school. After the videoconference rally, students will work for two weeks in their communities to raise money using their own lemonade stands and will report their fundraising totals on a daily basis via a special website. Throughout the two weeks, students involved will collaborate with each other through an online blog, a virtual pen pal program, special video collage projects, song and poem contests and a lemonade stand poster contest.

The two-week event will culminate in a final multi-site videoconference on April 26, 2007 with special guest speaker Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA) who will join via videoconference from Washington D.C. The final event will provide an interactive platform for students to share their experiences and project accomplishments with peers from different regions of the U.S.

The Virtual Alex’s Lemonade Project has been coordinated by MAGPI and Alex’s Lemonade Stand with technical support from Internet2.

For full details of the event, visit: http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade.html

MEDIA ARE INVITED TO LOCAL VIDEOCONFERENCE SITES FOR THE EVENT.

The general public is invited to watch live by following http://commonsvcg.oar.net/MAGPI- click on Alex’s Lemonade Kick-Off under the live conferences category. For more information please contact: Heather Weisse, MAGPI Applications Coordinator at 215-573-6417 or hweisse@magpi.net.

WHERE: Schools participating in the Virtual Alex’s Lemonade Stand Project include:

Avon Grove Intermediate School - West Grove, PA
Charleroi Area High/Middle School - Charleroi, PA
Cheltenham High School - Wyncote, PA
Comanche Elementary- Comanche, OK
Coppin Academy - Baltimore, MD
Cynwyd School - Bala Cynwyd, PA
Delaware Valley High School - Milford, PA
East Bradford Elementary - West Chester, PA
Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences (From The National Constitution Center- Philadelphia, PA)
Heritage Junior/Senior High School - Monroeville, IN
Onekama Middle School - Onekama, MI
Penn Wynne Elementary School - Wynnewood, PA
Pierremont Elementary School - Manchester, MO
Phoenixville Area Middle School - Phoenixville, PA
Pocono Mountain East High School - Swiftwater, PA
St. Charles School - Lima, OH
Squires Elementary - Lexington, KY
Whitehall High School - Whitehall, PA
Williamstown High School - Williamstown, NJ

ABOUT THE ALEX’S LEMONADE STAND FOUNDATION

Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (a registered 501c3 public charity) is a unique foundation that evolved from a young cancer patient's front yard lemonade stand to a nationwide fundraising movement to find a cure for childhood cancer. Since Alexandra "Alex" Scott (1996-2004) set up her front yard stand at the age of four, more than $10 million has been raised towards fulfilling her dream of finding a cure for all children with cancer.

ABOUT MAGPI

MAGPI provides regional and Internet2 connectivity to its member institutions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. A division of Information Systems and Computing at The University of Pennsylvania, MAGPI is committed to promoting advanced applications, collaborations, and services for the K20 research and education community through high performance networking technology. For more information about MAGPI, visit http://www.magpi.net

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Start planning now! Getting ready for your April Lemonade Stands!

2007-03-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

In a little less than a month, we'll be gathering 'virtually' for our Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Kick-Off Event! The planning team is very excited about this event, which features a live performance of the Alex's Lemonade song by Whitehall High School and remarks from Liz Scott, Alex Scott's mother and Vice President of Development for Alex's Lemonade Stand. Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Gerber will also be joining us!

It's time to start planning your lemonade stands and how you'll implement the special projects in which your school will be participating. Schools participating in the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand project will have 2 weeks to host a Lemonade Stand. Schools can have a one-day lemonade stand fundraiser or hold a stand every day for the two week period or some other combination! Last year, some schools held special events during lunch while others invited the community to after school stands. One Philadelphia school held an "Alex's Water Ice" stand on their playground and sold hot dogs and water ice! We've included their pictures in this blog entry.

Need ideas? Not sure where to start? Download the guide for setting up events, produced by Alex's Lemonade Stand! The guide, in PDF format, is available on the project website at: http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade.html.

In the next two weeks, each participating school will receive a package of resources from Alex's Lemonade Stand, including: return envelopes, banners, thank you notes, stickers, newsletter and brochures.

We're curious about what your school will be doing! We currently have 15 schools signed up for this project (everywhere from Oklahoma to Ohio to Pennsylvania) and we know that each of you will be doing really interesting and inspiring things as part of this project. Let us know your plans by leaving a brief comment. This blog is an excellent way for us to brainstorm ideas together and learn from one another!

So What Does It Mean To Make a Difference?

2007-03-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

To me, making a difference happens in small ways. The simple things we do can make large ripples in the world. A simple idea like a lemonade stand has made millions for cancer research. The world needs more "good" in it. And it's the "simple good" that I'm referring to. There is a theory in science called the Chaos Theory (or butterfly effect). This theory suggests how simple things in nature can cause global effects on the environment. For example, the theory suggests how the flapping wings of a butterfly, causing a small whirl of wind, can cause an effect on a large ecosystem. This is a nice metaphor for making a difference in the world when things seem too challenging, or when we think the possible is impossible.

JUST ANNOUNCED! Congressman Sestak to speak!

2007-02-22T07:56:00.000-08:00

As part of the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand closing celebration on April 26, 2007, Congressman Joe Sestak will speak with students from the Internet2 Corporate Offices in Washington, D.C.!

About Representative Sestak:
Joe Sestak is serving his first-term as the Representative from Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District, which includes most of Delaware County and parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties.

Born and raised in Delaware County, Joe Sestak spent 31 years serving our nation in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of three-star Admiral.

Joe Sestak brings to Congress the same dedication and commitment with which he served this country in the Navy. As a member of Congress, Joe is working to strengthen our country's national security - national security that begins at home in the health, education, and economic promise of our people, as well as our defense security. Joe's primary focus is on fixing problems and moving our country forward - not on governing from the left or on the right.

During his distinguished career in the Navy, Joe led a series of operational commands, culminating in the command of the George Washington aircraft carrier battle group, which consisted of 30 U.S. and allied ships, 15,000 sailors, and close to 100 aircraft. Under Joe's watch, the George Washington battle group conducted combat operations in Afghanistan and precursor operations to the war in Iraq.

Joe also served in President Clinton's White House as the Director for Defense Policy on the National Security Council. After 9/11, he was selected to serve as the first Director of "Deep Blue," the Navy's anti-terrorism unit where he worked to establish new strategies for the Navy to fight the Global War on Terror.

After graduating from Cardinal O'Hara High School, Joe followed in the footsteps of his father, a Navy captain who served in World War II, and attended the U.S. Naval Academy, where he graduated second in his class. Joe also holds a MPA, and a PhD in Political Economy and Government, from Harvard University.

Joe has one brother and six sisters. He and his wife, Susan, have a daughter, Alexandra.

More information about Representative Sestak can be found at: http://www.sestakforcongress.com/.

Find out more about the celebration videoconference event at http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade.html.

Opening Blog

2006-12-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

Hello World!

I am very excited about this opportunity to bring you Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand! If you're hearing about this for the first time, Alex's Lemonade Stand is a non-profit organization helping doctors find a cure for kids with cancer. Alex Scott, the inspiring young girl who was diagnosed with pediatric cancer in 2000, began her mission to fight for a cure, "One cup at a time" through her corner lemonade stand. A simple idea you might be thinking? An impossible dream? An idea so small that a little girl could make a difference in the world?

Needless to say, Alex raised over $1,000,000 for cancer research before she passed at the age of 8 years old.

Alex's inspiration rippled through the community and all over the United States and beyond, raising over 9 million dollars as of November 2006.

Here at the Lower Merion School District, where Alex attended elementary school, and MAGPI at the University of Pennsylvania, we began a virtual lemonade stand project to help connect students in grade K to 12 with Alex's determinable story and create the awareness of kids with cancer.

To find out more about our project: Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand, please visit:
http://www.magpi.net/programs/alexslemonade.html
http://www.alexslemonade.org/

If you have comments, please post them here!
We would love to hear from you.