Dear Friends,

For the last two years, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Childhood Cancer Foundation (ALSF - www.alexslemonade.org) has been kind enough to fund my laboratory with a grant of almost $300,000.  In September, the ALSF will be holding its annual Million Mile fundraiser. As a way to thank its grant-funded scientists, the ALSF matches dollar for dollar the amount of money that we raise during the fundraiser.  I am proud to say that with your help, my laboratory last year raised more money for pediatric cancer research than any other ALSF-external Million Mile team in the country!  This year, again with your help, we’d like to produce an encore performance.

Childhood cancers are among the most underfunded diseases that afflict kids in America today. Childhood cancer foundations like the ALSF fund treatments and cures for a variety of childhood cancers that might otherwise go largely unnoticed. The ALSF is the major funder of my laboratory’s pediatric brain cancer clinical trial, and your donation to the ALSF on our behalf will go a long way toward solving a variety of critical problems in pediatric oncology.

One more important thing. This year my group is holding the fundraiser in memory of Dr. Robert Arceci who was killed in a traffic accident in June (http://www.stbaldricks.org/blog/post/farewell-to-a-giant-remembering-dr-robert-arceci/). Bob was one of the most famous and respected pediatric oncologists in the US and a specialist in childhood brain tumors, leukemias, and sarcomas. Bob was also a dear friend and close scientific collaborator. He had worked very hard on the implementation of this clinical trial and was really looking forward to its ultimate fruition. We miss him terribly.

No one else is going to get this done, so it’s up to us.

With love,

William