Congratulations to our AMAZING Schools!!!

HUGE kudos to all our 2013 Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand participating schools! You are all incredible and together we raised thousands of dollars to help end pediatric cancers worldwide. What an amazing wrap-up celebration event we shared on Tuesday May 21st!! It was so wonderful to hear all of your efforts over the last two weeks and to see your amazing lemonade stands in action!

Big thanks to our incredibly awesome and super professional VJ team from Southern Lehigh Middle School! What a fabulous job you did of moderating this fast-paced event and making it fun and visually exciting, too.

We were especially delighted to hear from the two guest speakers you brought in for the event: 

Carrie Tamutus, Executive Director of the Pediatric Cancer Foundation of the Lehigh Valley and mother of two of your middle-schoolers and Doug Sherriff, President of Angel 34.

The Pediatric Cancer Foundation of Lehigh Valley (PCFLV) is a local, 501(c)3 non-profit organization that supports the entire family battling pediatric cancer. They provide individual assistance based on the needs of families, as well as organize events, and special get-togethers to create opportunities for those families to participate in fun and engaging activities, free of charge. These gatherings create a place for parents and kids to find nurturing support within the pediatric cancer community. PCFLV also makes hospital visits with an array of arts and crafts and toys to entertain and distract children during their treatment.

Angel 34 is a national organization united in the fight against Childhood Cancer and dedicated to finding a cure. Doug's daughter, Nicole, started the organization. After her passing, Doug and his wife continue her mission. Since its establishment in 2003, Angel 34 is committed to bring hope and healing to the children and families of those affected by childhood cancer.

Unfortunately, our hero ambassador, Mikayla Andrews, who was scheduled to join us for the celebration event was actually detained while at clinical treatment at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia on Tuesday and so could not join us as she had planned and hoped. We all send our very best wishes to Mikayla for her continued recovery and win against childhood cancer.

In case you missed a single moment of our wrap-up event you can view the archived video of the event at http://video.magpi.net/videos/video/720/. Feel free to share this url with students, parents, principals and members of the community.

And big kudos to all the winners of our special optional projects:
Make a Difference Commercial Contest Winner: Moreland Hills Elementary (Pepper Pike, Ohio)
Poster Contest: Southern Lehigh Middle School (Center Valley, PA)
Lemonade Stand Flair Contest Winner: Moreland Hills Elementary (Pepper Pike, Ohio)
Social Media Contest: Thomasville Primary (Thomasville, PA)

Finally, we are beyond excited and proud of each and everyone one of you to announce that so far, our total amount raised is over $12,700!! And this number is likely to increase as some of your stands have not even happened yet. We are so thrilled at how much money we could raise for the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation through your incredible lemonade stand efforts. Thank you for all the hard work and all the efforts you and your schools put into raising this money which is so desperately needed to help find a cure and end childhood cancers worldwide. Thank you!! And, hope to see you all next year!!

2013 Poster Contest Entries

Here are the poster contest entries for our 2013 Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand project! Thank you to everyone who submitted a poster! Our judges at the University of Pennsylvania are reviewing the entries based on the rubric viewable online. The winners will be announced during our Celebration Wrap-Up videoconference on Tuesday May 21st.

Marcus Hook Elementary

Liberty Bell 

National Dali HIgh School 

East Noble Middle School

Southern Lehigh Middle School 

Hallowell Elementary

South Lebanon

Wow! What a great kick-off event!

Wow! What an incredible kick-off event last Tuesday! We were so happy to see all the kids and their smiling faces - not to mention the cheers, songs, and spirit each and every school displayed. If you want to share the archive from the kick-off you can send folks to: the 2013 Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Video Channel to see the recording. (Note: Unfortunately, the recording did stop at one point so there is a part one and a part two.) 

Check out our incredible Kick-Off VJ team from Thomasville Primary School in North Carolina!! Isn't their back drop and set amazing?? Thank you for such an amazing job leading our kick-off event, Thomasville! 

We were so lucky to again have a visit from Liz Scott, Alex's mom. Here she is reading from Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand which all schools will get a copy of, thanks to Liz! 

All the schools showed such incredible spirit and enthusiasm. We just KNOW you're going to raise lots of money and awareness for Alex's Lemonade Stand! Good luck! 

Ideas for Enhancing Your School Engagement and Fundraising

One of our incredible technology facilitators at one of our VJ schools, Southern Lehigh Middle, mentioned some truly amazing things that her school does to help further fundraising efforts and increase awareness for their Alex's Lemonade Stand efforts all year long. Thought it'd be great to share these ideas with you all to inspire you and possibly get you thinking of other ways to enhance your lemonade stand activities across disciplines and other activities in your schools.

Ideas from Tara Walter, Southern Lehigh Middle School 

Art Teacher
-- Getting students to create back drop for our Stand
--Also, hoping to get her graphic art 8th grade students to submit entries for the poster contest

Family Consumer Science
--Making lemon themed baked goods to sell during lunches with lemonade at our stand for the 2 weeks between the kick off event and wrap up. (We will actually be continuing this for the remainder of the week after the wrap up leading to our field day)

Physical Education
-- Hosting the 1st Annual Alex's Lemonade Field Day with lemon/yellow themed events. Please see below.

STEM
-- Building the Stand. The stand will be the stand for the event, but also the new stand for our sales.

Builder's Club
-- This is our service club, which supports Alex's Lemonade in addition to other foundations, that has a stand all year long at the end of the day one day a week during an activity schedule. They sell lemonade by the glass to students and teachers for 25 cents a glass.

My period 5 DESIGN 21 
-- writing script, planning, etc., for the event

TECH 
-- Taking footage to capture all events and showcase to students and for upcoming years Get coverage from local newspaper, school newspaper, and local news station, which was done in the past. 

Below are the ideas we have come up with for the 1st Annual Alex's Lemonade field Day (still a work in progress)..

*Volleyball (yellow VB)
*Tug of War (purple side---yellow side)
*Bounce Out (yellow bouncing ball, putting yellow tape around the white tennis lines, yellow decorations like streamers all along the tennis nets)
*Scooter Race (paper lemons to stick on the wall at the end)
*Kickball (yellow ball)
*Yellow sponge pass (for a relay race....pass it back and the last person empties the water in a bucket.  Or if not with water, maybe something within a relay race with a sponge?)
* Yellow hula hoops relay
* Yellow balloons for a shaving cream (too messy?)
* Lemon hunt (like an easter egg hunt concept but with lemons instead)
* Lemon toss (part of a relay race?)
* Cut lemon in half and put food dye it apparently turns the whole lemon a color?) Other ideas Builder's Club kids had:
* May 20-24 we would sell various items at the stand that STEM and Art Teacher create: during HR and activity period, sell the shoelaces, pre-wrap, bandanas...on Alexs Lemonade website there were also tattoos and lemon bandz (like silly bandz) we could also sell along with baked goods
* Donation boxes in Homerooms for lemonade. We weren't sure about if Field Day works on points earned at the games or not. But we thought that if you did, there could be a donation box all week. The amount of money plus the points earned at Field Day would determine the top winners? (Might be logistically tough!)
* Taking a picture with all of the kids in their colors by the stand
* Having various yellow food items like pineapple, bananas, lemon head candies, yellow peeps, Rita's ice, lemon ice pops etc.

2013 Theme Announced and New Optional Contests

On Thursday April 18th, the two incredible VJ teams met with MAGPI for our first planning meeting of 2013! Our outstanding VJ teams this year are Thomasville Elementary (for the kick-off) and Southern Lehigh Middle School for the wrap-up! I am over the moon excited to announce that Lexi, an 8th grade student in Southern Lehigh Middle, proposed a theme for this year of "Paradise for Patients: Raising Money for Cancer Patients to Create a Paradise for the Future (Our Tomorrow)." The two VJ teams took a vote and unanimously voted on this as our theme for 2013!!

Please consider incorporating this theme into your lemonade stand and/or optional activities. And, speaking of optional activities, how cool is it that we had several new optional activities that were also proposed for this year including the following: 

Social Media Contest (optional)

Because social media is such a huge part of our lives now we're incorporating this NEW social media contest into this year's event. Now you can use social media and post photos of your school getting ready for their stand, holding their stand, or participating in the live videoconference events and then be sure to tag them with the hashtag #avls2013 and @alexslemonade. The top 5 photos with the most "likes' or shares on instagram, pinterest, twitter, and facebook will be our winning photos and will be highlighed in a special photo gallery! Spread the good word of your school's fundraising efforts far and wide using your social media channels! Remember to tag your photos with #avls2013 so we can find them.

Lemonade Stand Flair Contest (optional)
This optional contest was the suggestion of one of our great VJ team students from Southern Lehigh Middle School who suggested we have a contest for the best decorated Lemonade Stand! Use your imagination and of course make it stand out and attract people to your stand. Stands will be judged based on this Find out more and check out the judging rubric.

Make a Difference Commercial Deadline Extension
The deadline for the optional Make A Difference Commercial Contest has been extended to Friday May 3rd. Please send your commercials to Jennifer by Friday May 3rd for consideration. See the project website for full details.

Welcome to our 2013 Alex's VIRTUAL Lemonade Stand Project Schools!!

We are thrilled to kick-off the 2013 Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand project and proud to introduce our thirteen schools. They are:

Southern Lehigh Middle School, Center Valley, PA
Moreland Hills Elementary, Pepper Pike, OH
Schuylkill Elementary School, Phoenixville, PA
CLSD, Lebanon, PA
Liberty Bell Elementary School, Coopersburg, PA
National Dali High School, Dali City, Taiwan
Marcus Hook Elementary School. Marcus Hook, PA
Montana School for the Deaf and Blind, Great Falls, MT
Hallowell Elementary, Horsham PA
Thomasville Primary School, Thomasville, NC
Liberty Drive Elementary School, Thomasville, NC
Ridgway Area School District, Ridgway, PA
East Noble School Corporation, Kendallville IN
Sarah W. Starkweather Elementary School, West Chester, PA

It's going to be a fantastic event! We're so happy that you are all joining the efforts to raise money and awareness to help end childhood cancers one cup at a time...

Announcing Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand 2013

It's here, it's here! - The 2013 Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Project is now open for registration!

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 12, 2013
Make a Difference Commercials Due: April 29, 2013*
Videoconference Testing: April 15 - 30, 2013
Kick-Off Virtual Pep Rally: May 7, 2013 from 11:00 AM EDT - 12:00 PM EDT via videoconference
 Lemonade Stand Projects: May 7 - May 21, 2013
Poster Competition Entries Due: May 15, 2013*
Wrap-Up Celebration Videoconference: May 21, 2013 from 11:00 AM EDT - 12:00 PM EDT via videoconference
(* denotes Optional Project)

Register Today at http://magpi.net/Community/Programs/Alexs-Virtual-Lemonade-Stand