Like our famous lemonade, the temperatures are icy cold all winter long. Instead of hiding from cold winter days, warm yourself up with some good times for a great cause!
Childhood cancer hero Matthew, pictured above, raised over $8,000 at his hot chocolate stand.
Build awareness and gingerbread houses to raise funds for research. Pictured above, guests at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City party decorate houses to benefit ALSF.
Lemons are sour--but raising money for childhood cancer is sweet! Above, contestants in the Northwestern Mutual Lemon Face contest make their lemon faces!
by Trish Adkins
Like our famous lemonade, the temperatures outside are icy cold this winter. Instead of hiding from cold winter days, warm up with some good times for a worthy cause! You can help Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) fight childhood cancer and gets kids closer to cures. From making crazy lemon faces to swapping lemonade for hot chocolate, there are so many fun ways you can fund childhood cancer research through ALSF!
1. Swap out Lemonade for Hot Chocolate
ALSF supporter and childhood cancer hero Matthew hosted “Matthew’s Miraculous Hot Cocoa Stand for Pediatric Cancer Research.” Matthew, who was diagnosed with a rare kidney cancer in 2014, took his stand to a local park. The result was over $8,000 raised! You can be like Matthew and host a hot cocoa stand at your local park, in your front yard or even in conjunction with a local business! The ALSF Stand Kit has everything you need to get started, whether the temperatures are low or high. Sign up here.
2. Turn Your Winter Sports into Fun-raising
Whether you are dunking, making saves, pinning opponents or gearing up for spring sports, you can become a Champion for Kids with Cancer! Throughout your season, your athletic goals can also be fundraising goals. Through a personalized fundraising web page, your supporters can make a donation, pledge a dollar amount per goal, save or other accomplishment.
It is never too late in the season to sign-up to be a Champion. Head here to learn more about this fun program that turns athletic accomplishments into research dollars!
3. Sign up for a Team Lemon race (and escape to warmer climates!)
It might be cold where you live, but it is warm down south! Take advantage of warmer temperatures and sign up to run in an upcoming 5K, 10K, half or full marathon. ALSF has charity bibs for a variety of races in warm destinations like Disney World in Florida, as well as races in Texas and Hawaii. Grab your bib by committing to fundraise for childhood cancer research. A list of available races is here.
4. Host a Photo Challenge
Started in memory of Sadie Hulsey, who died from an aggressive leukemia called juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) the Childhood Cancer Christmas Tree Challenge, invites everyone to mimic one of Sadie’s mom’s favorite photos from Christmas. In the picture, Sadie is in the tiara and her younger sister, Lanier is napping under the tree. Supporters recreate the picture themselves (with some hilarious results!) and donate on the event’s fundraising page.
Anyone can host a similar challenge. Simply pick one of your favorite, slightly silly, photos, start a fundraising page on the ALSF website and ask supporters to share their copycat photos on social media with your fundraising page link.
5. Make Your Best Lemon Face
Take your photo challenge live and make it a fun part of your holiday event! ALSF partner Northwestern Mutual Baltimore hosts an annual Lemon Face Challenge fundraiser at the Baltimore Business Journal's 40 Under 40 event. This fun event has attendees making silly mugs for the camera and guests voting on the best sour lemon faces. Collect donations for entrants and for votes!
6. Build Awareness (out of gingerbread!)
Who doesn’t love a gingerbread house?! The Hyatt Regency Crystal City hosted a Gingerbread Challenge to benefit ALSF in the Washington DC metro area. At the event, the Hyatt set up an onsite lemonade stand to collect donations while teams worked to assemble creative, holiday gingerbread houses. Entries were posted online for public voting (and awareness building!) and the winning team (with 131 likes!) won a 2-hour reception for up to 25 guests at the Hyatt.
7. Turn Hobbies into Hope!
Love to craft or knit? Sell your wares and donate the proceeds to ALSF. Love to cook or bake? Host a bake sale or chili competition. Share your special talent and help raise funds for childhood cancer at the same time.
8. Snowman Building Competition
Gather all your neighborhood snow lovers and builders for a snowman building competition! Have people make a donation to compete. The audience can vote on who has the best snow creation by putting a small donation in the bucket of their favorite snowman. In the end, whichever snowman has the most donations, wins! (Insider tip: order some ALSF gear to decorate your snow creation from Alex’s Shop!)
No snow where you live? Turn your snowman competition into a sand castle competition (and of course serve lemonade!)
9. Get Social with Facebook Fundraising
Facebook makes it easy to fundraise! Head over the ALSF Facebook page and select “create” to create a Facebook fundraiser and invite your network to donate. You can host your Facebook fundraiser in honor of your birthday, anniversary or life event. You can also host one just because you feel inspired to help kids with cancer.
10. Shop with Amazon Smile
When the temperatures drop, there is no need to leave the comfort of your couch. We all love shopping with Amazon Prime and during the holiday season (and all year long), your Amazon shopping can benefit ALSF. When you shop at Smile.Amazon.com and select us as your charitable organization, the Amazon Smile Foundation will donate .5% of your eligible purchase price to us.
11. Dinner Party
Give all your friends and neighbors a reason to skip making dinner one night! Call your local restaurants and ask them to host a fundraising night benefiting ALSF. Whether a chain restaurant or a locally-owned dinner spot, most restaurants have options for guests to dine and donate!
12. Turn Your Passion into Progress
Everyone has a gift to give in the fight for cures for childhood cancer. SuperSib and cowgirl, Larkin, is using her sport of barrel racing to raise awareness and funds for ALSF. Larkin set up an online fundraiser, planned an awareness night at the Southeastern Kansas Little Britches Rodeo and hosted a Facebook Benefit Auction on Cyber Monday. But she didn’t stop there—Larkin also planned a barrel racing event to benefit ALSF and is constantly encouraging others in her sport to raise money for childhood cancer research.
Need more ideas? Well, we have 25 ways you can support ALSF and fight childhood cancer all winter long. Just head here.
