A lemonade stand a four-year-old set up in her front yard in 2000 has, 26 years later, raised more than $400 million for childhood cancer research.

Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF), now the largest independent childhood cancer charity in the United States, announced this week it has officially surpassed $400 million raised since Alex Scott, diagnosed with cancer before her first birthday, started selling cups of lemonade to fund a cure.

  • $400 million+ raised since the foundation's first stand in 2000
  • 1,500+ research projects funded at over 150 institutions
  • 77% to 85% rise in U.S. childhood cancer survival rates since 2005
  • 18 to 60+ FDA-approved childhood cancer treatments now available, up from 18

From a front yard to a movement

Alex raised $1 million before she died at age eight in 2004. Her parents, Liz and Jay Scott, kept the stand going, and it grew into a nationwide grassroots campaign built on exactly the kind of fundraising a child could understand: cups of lemonade, a jar for coins, a sign in crayon.

That simplicity scaled. ALSF has since backed 240+ clinical trials a year across every type of pediatric cancer and funded the first-of-its-kind Childhood Cancer Data Lab, earning a peer-reviewed funder designation from the National Cancer Institute along the way.

The foundation has also committed $35 million through its Crazy 8 Initiative, bringing together more than 100 scientists across eight collaborative teams chasing cures for the hardest-to-treat childhood cancers, and awarded over 300 Young Investigator grants of up to $180,000 to early-career researchers.

"Alex never got to see what her lemonade stand would become," said Liz Scott, Alex's mother and ALSF co-executive director. "But every child who survives today because of research we funded... twenty-six years later, our supporters are still proving her right."

Why the number matters

Childhood cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease for children under 20 in the U.S. At least 15% of children diagnosed will not survive, and most of the roughly 500,000 American survivors alive today will develop a chronic health condition from their treatment.

The gap is sharper outside the U.S.: 90% of childhood cancer diagnoses happen in low-income countries, where survival for cancers considered highly curable in America can fall to 20-30%.

Against that backdrop, the rise in U.S. survival from 77% to 85% since 2005 traces directly back to research ALSF has funded, alongside the growth in approved treatments from 18 to more than 60. The foundation has also supported over 15,000 families through programs covering travel costs to treatment and support for siblings during a diagnosis.

A record year behind the milestone

The $400 million mark follows ALSF's strongest fundraising year yet. Its 14th annual Million Mile campaign, held during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September, raised over $2.8 million and logged more than 960,000 miles from over 11,000 participants.

Survivors funded by that earlier research are now part of the campaign themselves — setting up their own lemonade stands and logging their own miles for a girl many of them never met, carrying forward a fundraising model that started with a four-year-old and a pitcher of lemonade, detailed in ALSF's full announcement.