Bruins Fighting Pediatric Cancer will quench students’ tenth-week thirst today, offering tall glasses of lemonade for donations to the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.
Alex’s Lemonade Stand, which benefits pediatric cancer research, will make its first appearance on UCLA’s campus. Bruins Fighting Pediatric Cancer officials said the event is their organization’s main fundraising event and said it hopes to sell over 1,000 cups of lemonade today.
The organization was founded in January by second-year students Paola Lepe, Catherine Pourdavoud and Renuka Rudra with one goal in mind: “to not let cancer cloud the joy of being a kid,” President Pourdavoud said.
The organization consists of four main pillars: Alex’s Lemonade Stand, community outreach at UCLA’s Mattel Children’s Hospital, Camp Ronald McDonald, and UCLA cancer research, co-founder and Vice President Paola Lepe said.
Alex’s Lemonade Stand began in 2000, when 4-year-old Alexandra Scott, who had been diagnosed with neuroblastoma, decided to hold a lemonade stand to raise money for doctors to find a cure for pediatric cancers, Lepe said.
Alex continued to hold her annual lemonade stand for the following four years leading up to her death, and people worldwide began hosting lemonade stands for Alex’s cause.
The foundation works directly with researchers, doctors and nurses, according to the Web site, and proceeds are allocated to the least funded forms of pediatric cancer.
Pourdavoud said she was inspired to create the group after hearing Alex’s story and her experience volunteering at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, a place for children with cancer, and their families.
“Their strength, energy and smiles inspire me even in my weakest of moments,” Pourdavoud said.
She also began shadowing a doctor at the UCLA Pediatric Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcoma clinic that receives grant funding from Alex’s Lemonade Stand, and Pourdavoud said she wanted to take her “love for working with children with cancer to UCLA.”
She said she hopes to go to medical school to become a pediatric oncologist and researcher so that she can dedicate her life to serving children with cancer.
“All you really need are dedicated hearts with the same drive. That makes a difference,” Lepe said.