When Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation founder Alex Scott was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in 1997, doctors didn’t know her cancer was driven by ALK – a mutation that fuels the development of neuroblastoma cells. And even if they did, there...
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
You can help kids fight cancer today by helping fund breakthrough research. Your donation makes a difference.
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
You can help kids fight cancer today by helping fund breakthrough research. Your donation makes a difference.
Flashes of Hope photo by Ed Wheeler
The Childhood Cancer Facts
Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children up to age 20 in the United States. As the leading independent pediatric cancer charity in the U.S., Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) dedicates every day to honoring our childhood cancer heroes, funding research, raising awareness, and empowering everyone to change the future of childhood cancer.
We fund only the best and most innovative research across the globe, from early-stage projects to lifesaving clinical trials. Prior to our first awarded grant in 2005, only 18 drugs were FDA-approved for kids with cancer. Today, more than 60 drugs have been approved for childhood cancer treatment.
Here are the other childhood cancer facts we are striving to change, with help from our supporters:
- More than 400,000 children develop cancer worldwide each year with an estimated 15,000 of them diagnosed within the United States. Yet childhood cancer research remains consistently underfunded.
- At least 15% of children will not survive their diagnosis. For these children, gaps in research and viable treatment continue to persist despite the growing number of survivors.
- At least 60% of these survivors develop one or more chronic health conditions as a result of their diagnosis and the required treatment. The effects of cancer do not end just because treatment does. Today, there are more than 500,000 survivors in the U.S. in need of support and more research.
- 90% of kids with cancer live where survival rates are only 20-30% for cancers that are highly curable in places like the U.S. Childhood cancer care and treatment continue to cause a great divide between high- and low-income countries, which cannot be ignored.
- Even then, over 70% of the U.S. population lives more than 100 miles from the medical centers offering some of the most critical treatments for brain tumors, sarcomas, and leukemias.
Source: The Childhood Cancer Report 2026
And these facts only scratch the surface. Learn more childhood cancer facts in The Childhood Cancer Report 2026 here.
How can you make a difference? Donate here, or join our Childhood Cancer Awareness Month challenge, The Million Mile, here.
Join the Fight Against Childhood Cancer
Sign up for our email list to be the first to hear about new research breakthroughs, read inspiring stories from our hero families, and see your impact in action.
Help Awareness Grow in September
Share any of the graphics below to help increase awareness of the realities of childhood cancer during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Show your support of the cause by posting to your social media and tagging us @AlexsLemonade. Together, let’s encourage others to keep turning lemons into lemonade.
Click on an image below to open it in a new window to save for sharing:
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Copy and paste the following text to use as a caption:
September is #ChildhoodCancerAwarenessMonth. Every year, an estimated 400,000+ children are diagnosed with cancer worldwide. That's over 1,000 new kids affected every day. @AlexsLemonade is working to ensure those kids can beat their disease and live long, healthy lives.
You can join me by helping fund childhood cancer research to support these families. Learn more at AlexsLemonade.org.
Where We Come From
At ALSF, we understand childhood cancer. We literally have our roots in a 4-year-old's lemonade stand. Our founder, Alex Scott, sadly passed away from the cancer she was fighting, but not before she raised $1 million for childhood cancer research with lemonade stands she set up to help other kids too. Today, we have raised nearly $400 million with a commitment to continue changing the lives of kids with cancer, one cup at a time.
Read Childhood Cancer Stories
Featured Researcher
Heinrich Kovar, PhD is the team lead for the Crazy 8 project that is working to understand the origins of bone sarcomas, like Ewing sarcoma and osteosarcoma.