September 9, 2025 • 36 mins
Liz Scott's 4 year-old daughter Alex was fighting neuroblastoma cancer and yet Alex decided to host a lemonade stand to raise money for childhood cancer research. From her first stand that raised $2,000 to raising $1 million by the time she died at age 8, Alex inspired a movement that has raised $350 million, with a literal Army of Normal Folks hosting lemonade stands for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
By seven am, somebody's knocking on the door saying, I
know it doesn't start until later, but I'm going out
of town and I had to meet you and give
you my donation, and it was NonStop. At the end
of the day, I honestly thought it was too much
for her. A lot of people don't realize this about her,
but she didn't like attention like that. It wasn't about her.
It almost embarrassed her. And at the end of the day,
(00:24):
I said, what did you think, Alex, thinking this may
have been too much for her, and she said it
was the best thing that ever happened to me. She
had raised two thousand dollars, and I remember feeling like
I was going to cry because I knew then that
for all of my sort of not mocking but joking
about the lemonade stand that's going to cure cancer, it
(00:46):
really meant something to her.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach and
inner City Memphis. And somehow that last part led to
an oscar for the film about our team. It's called undefeated, y'all.
I believe our country's problems are never going to be
(01:11):
solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits
using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Rather by an army of normal folks.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what,
maybe I can help.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
That's what Liz Scott, the.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Voice you just heard, has done. Liz's four year old daughter, Alex,
was fighting neuroblastoma cancer, and yet Alex, at four years old,
decided to dig deep, and she hosted a lemonade stand
to raise money. But not for herself so she could
get a toy, and not for herself so she could
(01:52):
make herself happy.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
But this four year old with cancer.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Decided to host a lemonade stand to raise money for
child hood cancer research.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
By the time Alex died.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
When she was eight years old, her lemonade stand Get
This raised a million bucks from four to eight years old.
By her death at eight, she'd raised a million dollars
selling lemonade and Liz, Alex's mom, and her husband Jay,
have continued building their daughter's legacy ever since. Alex's lemonade
(02:26):
Stan foundation has raised an incredible three hundred and fifty
million dollars with a literal army of normal folks hosting
lemonade stands for them across the country. Guys, listen to
every word of this interview. I cannot wait for you
to meet Liz right after these brief messages from our
(02:48):
general sponsors.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Liz Scott, Welcome to Memphis.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah, where'd you flew in from Philly?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Philadelphia?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah? Do you get a NonStop flight on that bill? Yes?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Very easy, very easy.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, because we used to have a hub.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
We were in Northwest Hub in Memphis, and we had
NonStop everywhere with Delta Bolt Northwest.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
We lost our hub and we lost a lot of
our nonstops.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Well, I think you could go NonStop to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, we can't. Now that's that's the beautiful thing everybody.
Liz Scott is the co executive director with her husband Jay,
of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. More important, Liz is Alex's mom,
and we're going to talk about that first. For those
(03:50):
of you listening, we are at Firebirds Wood fired Grill
in Karivilt, Tennessee. I think fire Birds is a big
old sponsor of Alex's limit.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
They have been a sponsor for thirteen years, so we've
grown up together.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
A thirteen year sponsor of Alex's lemonade stands. So thank
you to Firebirds. And we are live in front of
a group of people who are interested in Liz and
Alex's story.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
So say hi everybody.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh that's weak, say hi everybody. Thank you. So fans, Liz,
what do you do? I mean, there's live people to
hear your story. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I think some of them are your fans.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
What's up to?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Your fans are your fans too? So you've got to
give yourself some credit.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
If we said, hey, Bill's going to be at Firebirds,
y'all come, we wouldn't have anybody here at all. So
it's you. Your story has so much to it and
we could do a ten hour show on it.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But very briefly, where are you from? How'd you grow up?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I grew up right outside Hartford, Connecticut in a place
called Windsor, Connecticut. Great childhood, very lucky, great place to
grow up. One of nine child Yes, so I grew
up with a lot of love and family around all
the time and had.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
A pretty typical for nine kids.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
My dad was a saint, as is my mom. He
was a nuclear power plant engineer. Wow, so he specialized
in I think, like how you get rid of the waita.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Like kindling on each other? And beds?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I mean, how how do you? How do you?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
We all had our own beds. At least I was
number seven, so I, you know, may have had it
a little more cushy than some of the older ones.
We all had our own beds, but we did. I
shared a room until high school. And in fact, I
remember when you know, as somebody moved to college, that's
it your room. After a little while, your room, what's gone? Yeah?
And I remember my mom just assumed I would want
(06:04):
to move. Or my sister moved to my other sister's room,
and I was devastated. I loved sharing a room with
my sister.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
That's awesome. So you and Jamie, where'd that happen?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
We met at Windsor high school. Were high school sweethearts,
no way, Yes, So we had a similar upbringing in
many ways. He's one of five. We didn't know each
other until high school, and we dated not only in
high school but all through college. We both went to
the University of Connecticut, go Huskies. I'm sure you've heard
of them. They're a really good basketball program.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, but they're stinking football and that's what we care about.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's actually true.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I know it is all right.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So sweet American, wonderful life.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Married. I think, how many kids in total do you have?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We have four children. So we got married right after
college young twenty two twenty three, and then we had
our first or oldest at twenty five, and Alex was
born when I was twenty six. My husband was twenty seven,
so we had would go on to have three kids
in four years, and Alex was our second child, and
then we had two other boys.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
And what were you and Jay doing for a living?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So after we graduated from Yukon, we my husband really
wanted He had his own painting business in college that
was like pretty big, but he didn't want to do
that forever. So he decided he wanted to start his
own business, and he very smartly researched and decided that
coffee was the next big thing. This was nineteen ninety two,
(07:36):
and wanted to open like the first on the campus
what we called gourmet coffee cappuccino espresso back in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
And can you tell me he's a founder of Starbucks.
We're all leaving.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Well, no, it was called the Java Joint. And because
we were young and as you can and now I
know now as a fifty five year old, I would
be like, yeah, we can't do that. We went to
the school, we said we want to open something right
in the middle of campus said we would love that,
but we're not giving you electricity, we're not giving you water.
So we had a cart maid that was electric powered,
propane powered espresso machine, opened up shop and from day
(08:14):
one we loved it and the campus loved it. And
my first son was born shortly after we opened that,
and then after it was very successful. We were actually
the week Alex was diagnosed, we were having a meeting
with the owner of another shop that was in Hartford,
so we were going to open our second location, and
we ended up canceling the meeting, and ultimately because of
(08:35):
her diagnosis, we not only canceled and didn't open the
second shop, but we sold the Java Joint.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So the point is, briefly, just to establish kind of
who you are. You're one of nine, your husband's one
of five high school sweethearts. He paints, you go to college,
you start your life and you have a little boy,
and now you have a little girl. You have this
budding business. You're starting a wonderful kind of normal American dream,
(09:07):
but just a life, just a normal person living life.
And Alex comes along and you're giddy because you have
a second child. And at one, I think is when
the story of Alex really begins. Take us through that.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
You're absolutely right, I mean we sort of we had
a vision right for what life could be at that
point with the two young kids in the growing business,
like we all do. And Alex was diagnosed two days
before her first birthday and everything changed after that. So
much good came from it, but certainly, you know, there
(09:52):
were many, many harder times and we ever anticipated as
parents when you have children of kind of what my happen?
That was not really something that we thought would happen.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
A child with cancer, Tell me what it was.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
So she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, which is.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Originally she had a tumor. That's all you knew. Yes,
kind of.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Everybody listening and joining us needs to understand I'm asking
questions about ultimately the death of your daughter. So I
want to be empathetic and respectful, but I also think
it's really important for people to have perspective. So I
don't want to be pushy here, but I think it's
(10:39):
important that people understand the evolution of your mind as
a parent as well as what Alex went through, because
I get she had neuroblastoma, but really, your first thing
was my daughter has a tumor.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
That's right, that's right, that's very thank you for saying that,
because when she was first and we were told it
was a tumor, I still didn't think she had cancer.
In fact, my sister gave me a book that was
called When Your Child Has Cancer or something along those lines,
and they put us on the oncology floor and I
was not happy about it. We don't, I don't why would.
(11:16):
I don't need this book and I don't need to
be on this floor. She has a tumor, she doesn't
have cancer. So it took me a little while to
accept the fact that we were what we were dealing
with was cancer.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
So what they have to do for this tumor.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well, the first thing they did was they felt she
needed an immediate tumor resection. So surgery to remove the
tumor was very large in her abdomen and wrapping around
her spine, so they felt like it needed to come out.
They did that surgery the day before her first birthday.
She came out of surgery. They were doing it in
two parts, front and then back, so belly and then spine.
(11:55):
After the belly surgery to remove the bulk of the tumor,
she came out and they said, you know, we might
wait to do the spinal surgery now. And she was
in the ICU. It had been a long day and
they started to seem like they were concerned about something.
They asked us to leave, and a few minutes later
they came back in and told us that during removing
(12:15):
this large tumor was so large that some of her
blood vessels were in the middle of it, and her
spinal cord blood flow was compromised and she was paralyzed
from the chest down, and they wanted to bring her
right back into surgery to make sure it wasn't the
spinal tumor that was causing it. So she went back
into surgery. Came out of surgery at one or two
(12:35):
am on her first birthday, and I just remember sitting there.
People had brought balloons for her and some presents for her,
and just holding her hand and thinking, this is your
child's first birthday, right, there's so much meaning in that,
and just wondering what life if she survived, what kind
(12:56):
of life she would have if she was going to
be paralyzed. And it was one of our lowest moments.
But I think really quickly she just showed me, as
she did many times in her life, that that's not
what you're thinking about in those times. Right where you're
thinking about is moving forward and getting better and enjoying
(13:19):
the good days. And she really did that from the
very beginning. She showed us how to do that.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And now a few messages from our gender sponsors, But first,
I hope you'll consider signing up to join the army
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Speaker 3 (13:47):
Be right back.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
As a parent and my children, Alex hates when I
use this adjective, but I consider my children delicious.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I savor them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
They're the greatest blessing in Lisa, in my life and
whenever any of our children have been sick and we
dealt with one that had some real problems. In that moment,
you want to be tough and strong for your kid,
but you're also dealing with this juxtaposition of devastation inside.
(14:47):
You balance that for me because that am I wrong?
Or is that you.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Are absolutely right? I remember after being told as new
and sitting with her for a minute, they had this
little room we could go into that was private, and
Jay and I were both sitting in the room, not
even able to comfort each other, just crying, you know, sobbing, sobbing,
hands on head, just spiraling. And then one of the
(15:17):
nurses knocked and she said, you know, we already mentioned
I have a big family. That a couple of my
sisters were there, and I literally said, I can't do this.
I can't talk to anybody else right now. I can't.
I can't do it. But very quickly something inside me
just said, you know, you have to do this. You
(15:39):
have children depending on you, right you can't sit in
here and feel sorry. You have to get out there
and do the things that you need to do as
a mom, and opened that door, honestly, and never really
looked back to that moment except to say that I'm
glad something inside of me told me just to stop,
(16:03):
get out there and do what you need to do.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
As we unfold the rest of the story. The reason
I wanted to hear that from you, which you and
I've never met her talked ever before. Now, I had
a sense that that's what you'd say. And I think
it's important because these years later, as we celebrate this
amazing organization and all that you've done, and we see this,
(16:29):
you said it, so I'm allowed to do it now,
a fifty five year old woman who's raised a family,
and we celebrate all of this. I think it's really
important that we're cognizant of and remember the trauma and
the tragedy and the pain and then the strength to
(16:50):
overcome it.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Normal folks experience that. Normal people.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
We have moneys, family problems, sick people, we have marital problems,
we have financial issues, we have all this crap that
heaps up on us and beats us up in life.
And the beauty of an army of normal folks is
people who overcome that and do things not because they're
(17:20):
bequeathed with this great opportunity, but despite what they're faced with,
and that strength is what's inspiring. And I just want
to remind everybody this is born from a family who
were devastated by one year old dying child. And certainly
(17:46):
there's a lot to celebrate, and we're going to get
to that, but if we lose fact of the true
obstacles and the true trauma of this, I think we
diminish the beauty of a success.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Makes sense, it.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Makes a lot of sense, and I really appreciate you
saying that because I often feel that the hardship that
Alex went through pretty much her entire life is easily
overlooked because of the incredible inspiration that she left us,
and even the stories I tell, which are very inspiring
(18:22):
about her, behind those stories was the fact that she
had this strength and she had this perspective because of
what happened to her in her life, and her life
was really, really hard.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
So you're left with a child who is now possibly
paralyzed one year old, and she grows tell us about it.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So as far as the paralysis goes, within a few
weeks she started showing signs of being able to move
her legs when we asked her to and started physical therapy,
and without spending too much time on that whole story,
eventually she really she screamed and fussed through every physical
therapy session, but she did what she needed to do.
Her goal was to be able to walk without leg braces,
(19:12):
and she eventually did it. She could kind of walk
across the room with touch points, and that was alone
was an incredible accomplishment because she was still considered pretty
significantly paralyzed and had no sensation in her legs. She
also went on to so when a child is diagnosed
with cancer, there's a protocol typically unless it's super rare,
(19:32):
and the protocol is designed to be the same at
pretty much every institution that's treating your child, and it's
designed to get your child to a cure ultimately, hopefully
except for those unfortunate rare ones where there's no cure still,
and in her case, there was a path to a cure,
and we we started down that path, which included surgery, chemotherapy,
(19:54):
Radiation therapy had a lot of stops and starts because
it would work and then stop working. So we were
seeing making second opinions and third opinions with in collaboration
with our doctor in Hartford. We were in Hartford still
at the time, after three plus years of treatment, we
all of our second and third opinions agreed that there
(20:16):
really wasn't much anything left to try for her. She
was three going on four and we were told she
was incurable and we were out of options known options.
So that's when again another moment where we had to
face this reality.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
That's a good shot.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It was, it was, It was. It was even harder
than the diagnosis because when she was diagnosed, you have
this hope that she's going to get better. You know,
you're going through this treatment with the idea that your
child is going to be cured and you can picture
them in ten years or twenty years, or you know,
at their wedding or whatever, you know, whatever it is
(20:57):
you dream about for your children as they grow. But
once you hear incurable, all of those things are taken
away immediately.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I'm trying to put myself in your shoes, and I
guess my my reaction as a father would be, well,
first question, how long do we have? And second thing
is what are we going to do to make the
best of that time?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Is that what you do.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
More or less. I mean, our thought was along the
lines of how much time. We felt like there were
stones left unturned, and we weren't ready to just take one, two,
three opinions and assume that that was the right path.
And the biggest reason we did that because that is
a path and sometimes parents have to make that decision,
(21:55):
is because she was doing pretty well on her good
days when she felt good. The cancer in her bones,
which is what the problem was at this point, was
causing her so much pain that we felt like not
treating her would only make that worse. So the days,
however long, she had, would not be good quality time.
So we started approaching different places to find out if
(22:16):
they had something that could help her. And that was
probably the words we use. We didn't ask for a cure.
We knew that no one was going to promise that,
but we wanted her to have a treatment that was
different than what she had and something that could maybe
give her good quality time and relieve her pain. And
that is literally what we found with a doctor in Philadelphia,
which honestly has led to so much, including her lemonade stand.
(22:38):
That's the power we learned A.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Voice y'all just said okay and moved to Philly.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, so we didn't move right away. We traveled to
Philadelphia for a consul. This was incredibly exciting. It was
a targeted therapy back in nineteen ninety nine, which was
kind of a buzzword then but not necessarily reality, something
that her tumors would soak up, but had far less
(23:04):
toxicity than chemotherapy and everything she had been through. He
really felt like it would help Herry. He had given
it to one child before. So we traveled here with
so much hope, but at the same time, you know,
you always guard yourself from having too much hope because
so much had disappointed. And she came out of that
hospital room. She was in isolation for three days. Essentially
(23:24):
we could go in and out, but not for extended
periods because she herself was radioactive from this treatment. She
came out of that treatment all smiles and she said
that treatment worked. Let's go shopping because that was her
fun thing to do when she valcated something. Yes, and
we went shopping for a Christmas dress. And that was
also like very symbolic because sort of dreading the upcoming holidays.
(23:48):
Now we had this child who said, I feel good,
Let's go get a Christmas dress. And we went back
to Connecticut, and we continued to travel back and forth
to Philadelphia, with our home hospital still being Connecticut coordinating things.
But after a year of doing that and me, after
a long day at the hospital, deciding we should just
drive home, getting on the Garden State Parkway South, which
(24:11):
might not mean much to anybody here unless they've been
on the Garden State Parkway, not realizing I was going
the wrong way because I was very distracted, until two
hours later when we were like almost in Cape May
and then turning around and having to drive six hours home,
got home, and we said, this isn't working for us anymore.
My son was in first grade. He liked to come
(24:33):
with us. We were getting a notice from the school
that he had missed too much school because we kept
pulling him out to travel. My husband had a commissioned
sales job in Connecticut, which was great, but he needed
to work to make money. A lot of things weren't
working for us, except for the fact that we had
this amazing support system. And then one day his boss said,
how would you like to transfer to Philadelphia, which was
(24:57):
he was selling medical books which was a bigger tear.
It was less overnight travel, and essentially he would it
would be a great opportunity, and we felt like we
couldn't say no to that. It was a place we
wanted to be for our child and for our family,
so we jumped at the chance. But it was a
very very hard move.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
So now you're in Philly, you have some hope that
at least there's some quality of life, even though that's
not a change that sets the stage for this kid
wearing you out and irritating you about wanting to start.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
A limonade stance. Yes, and that's kind of the beginning.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
It is the beginning. In fact, a lot of people
don't know this. Her first stand started in Connecticut. So
after we came to Philadelphia in that treatment worked, she
about a month later started talking about having a lemonade standing, which.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Was actually irritating.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Well, it wasn't so much irritating as yeah, maybe a
little pestering. So the first time she mentioned it, she
was still pretty sick. She was in the hospital for
an extended stay for another therapy, and I just said,
as we all do when you have especially when you
have many children. You know, you put them off sometimes
when it's not something that's important to you. And it
(26:27):
was January in Connecticut, so I said, oh, sure, we
can have a lemonade stand when you get out of
the hospital, when it gets warmer. But then she would
ask every month, and then.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Nobody January is going to be on the street.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
And then she persisted for about six months, persisted, and yes,
I would say, at times I was a little felt
pestered by the lemonade stand talk. So finally, one day
in June of two thousand, she was four and a half.
She was doing pretty well because of the response she
had to this. She still had cancer, but ed reduced
it a lot. She was feeling good. She said, we
(27:02):
still haven't had my lemonade stand. And now it's hot out.
So she would not like the Memphis heat. She did
not tolerate heat very well. And now it's too hot.
It's hot out. And I said, Alex, what do you
want to buy? So badly thinking let's skip the stand
and we'll go buy go to this store, get the
ten dollars toy and just call it a day. And
(27:23):
she said, I'm not keeping the money. I'm giving it
to my doctor, so they can help kids the way
they helped me. And that's why I believe at four
and a half it was born out of that brand.
We told her it was a brand new treatment that
helped her and made her feel better, and she wanted
other kids to have that same opportunity. And yes, she
was only four and a half.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That in and of a self is extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
It really is. And you know, her older brother was
similar she was. She was always sort of beyond her years.
So with the two of them, it it wasn't Actually
it was cute to me, and I was surprised, but
it wasn't surprising that Alex would come up with that.
But then when I had my two other boys, and
I don't know if they're gonna listen to this. Really
they were just normal four year olds, I'm gonna say.
(28:10):
But one day my husband and I, when one of
them was four, was like watching them play and they
were like being in something on the wall and then
like trying to hit their head on the wall maybe
to see if it felt different. And he was like,
this is the age she was when she started her lemonade.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Stand and now we have to meet heads.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
But they were more I realized and that that was
more typical than she was. But she didn't have a
typical life to that point. And I would say my
older son also did not, because he grew up with this.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
So you warned her, Okay, fine, Alex, that's sweet because
you're being sweet and everything, will have this stupid lemonade stand.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I didn't say it was stupid.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Well i'm my words, and I didn't think it was
sack and well you're gonna make ten twenty bucks, just
be prepared.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yes, So I did think right, I didn't think it
was it was stupid. I did think it was really
sweet and it was adorable. That was my main thought
was just keep in mind this was two thousand kids
weren't doing lemonade stands for charity. I think that's part
of why people gravitated to this idea. This was this
was something Alex helped create for kids, and kids do
(29:17):
lemonade stands, not just for us, but for all kinds
of causes now so, but mostly I thought, this is
so Alex. She thinks she's going to cure cancer with
a lemonade stand. Isn't that adorable? And I called my sister,
one of my sisters who also has four kids, and said,
you know, can you what do you do on Saturday?
Can you come by Alex. It's having a lemonade stand.
(29:38):
I'm afraid no one's going to show up. And she's
really excited about it. And as we were hanging up,
I said, oh, by the way, she's donating the money
to the hospital, and she said, you're kidding me and
I said no, like sort of like, isn't that so Alex?
She said, I'm going to call the newspaper and I
thought that was the funniest thing. I was like, no
one's going to care about her lemonade stand, and she said, oh,
you know in the.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
South, what we say about people that have these grandiose
ideas that are obviously ridiculous, what bless their hearts?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yes, exactly, bless her heart. She's going to hear her
cancer with lemonade.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Exactly, it's precious. Would bless her heart?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And I even you know, thought it. So we were
all about it, right, So we immediately set up that weekend.
My sister ended up calling the paper and she was right.
They did care. They did a little and you know,
you have like back when we had printed newspapers, and
everybody read them. The local section that's like two year
geographical part of the city. They printed something right on
(30:35):
the front of that about the little girl having a
lemonade stand and donating the money. And even then we
weren't necessarily anticipating that people would come out who we
didn't know. But that morning she she knew, she knew
so the night before, of course, she had to get
a new lemonade outfit. The night before, she went to
bed in her lemonade clothes because she said, I think
it's going to be really busy, and I want to
(30:56):
be up early and ready. So her and her brother,
and also keep in mind she was still not a
steady walker, but her and her brother got up early
the next morning.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, let's let's keep in mind. This is a girl
who's got no failing in her legs. Yes and treatments
four and a half. Yes, get you ready for a lemonade?
Speaker 3 (31:16):
She gets.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
So.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Any of you that can't get up for work on
time or school on time, George, if you can't get
up for school on time, you remember that.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Okay, she got up early, Say yes, sir, thank you,
go ahead, George. Is Alex's kid, he's.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I think George is an early riser. I bet George.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Loves to get all right, So here she is, she's
going to be.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
She gets up early, you know, gets us out of
bed early. She's got to make the lemonade. Wouldn't you
know it? By seven am, somebody's knocking on the door saying,
I know it doesn't start until later, but I'm going
out of town and I had to meet you and
give you my donation. And it was NonStop. I think
my husband must have gone out for lemonade. I don't
know how many times that day because we kept running out.
(31:59):
At the end of the day, I honestly thought it
was too much for her. A lot of people don't
realize this about her, but she didn't like attention like that.
It wasn't about her. It almost embarrassed her. George can
probably relate to this. Made her a little uncomfortable that
people were talking about her and asking her for things.
And she was very gracious as a four year old,
(32:21):
as gracious as a four year old can be beyond.
But at the end, and it was hot, so I
kept thinking how she'd been saying it was too hot,
And at the end of the day, I said, what
did you think, Alex, thinking this may have been too
much for her, and she said it was the best
thing that ever happened to me. She had raised two
thousand dollars, and I remember feeling like I was going
(32:42):
to cry because I knew then that for all of
my sort of not mocking but joking about the lemonade
stand that's going to cure cancer, it really meant something
to her. It really meant something to her, so much
so that after we moved to Philadelphia she starts talking
about having a lemonade sand again.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So Alex passed at eight years and a couple months.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Old, Yes, eight and a half, eight and a half.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
And incidentally, everybody, it's July. I'm not supposed to timestamp
because Alex back there gets mad at me about time
stamping Alex the producer. Oh incidentally, if anybody ever gets
involved in something we have a producer, you will find
out that producers are pains in the butt. Everybody else
likes them, but if you're my shoes. So anyway, I'm
time stamping this for everybody. Today is July thirtieth. Alex
(33:37):
died in August first, so we are two days from
the anniversary of Alex's passing, Yes, and from that four
and a half year old, pestering bless her heart, four
and a half year old little girl until the day
of her passing, this child raised a million.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Dollars she would have an annual lemonade stand. More and
more people heard about it. It became like a news
national news story, and it really lit a fire in her.
And honestly, as she got sicker in two thousand and four,
we weren't talking about lemonade. We knew if she made
it to her stand in June that it would be
her last stand. And she decided she was going to
(34:25):
raise a million dollars that year before she passed away.
And once again I thought I was sad because I
thought this, there's no way she's going to raise a
million dollars in this amazing thing. The thing that ever
marked yeah, not even so much bless her Heart, as
this incredible thing that she's accomplished is now going to
(34:48):
be disappointing because she's not going to reach that ultimate goal.
But when she was asked, she said, if everyone has
lemonade stands, I think we can do it. And it
became this amazing call to action, and that turned into
a movement of lemonade stands, all happening at the same
time to help her reach her goal. And by the
middle of July we were able to tell her she
(35:08):
would reach her goal, and she passed away not even
two weeks later. So she was obviously holding on to
see that goal met, and she was very determined that
things were going to be different for kids after her
than they were for her, into a certain level of stubbornness,
and I would say, almost like a fixation on meeting
(35:30):
this goal. Even when we were saying things like you're
too sick to travel to do that interview, It's okay
if you don't go to the stand, you don't have
to do this, she would just shut it down and
say I have to do this.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Liz Scott,
and you don't want to miss part two that now I'm.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Able to listen to.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Together, guys, we can change this country and it starts
with you. I'll see you in part two.
By seven am, somebody's knocking on the door saying, I
know it doesn't start until later, but I'm going out
of town and I had to meet you and give
you my donation, and it was NonStop. At the end
of the day, I honestly thought it was too much
for her. A lot of people don't realize this about her,
but she didn't like attention like that. It wasn't about her.
It almost embarrassed her. And at the end of the day,
(00:24):
I said, what did you think, Alex, thinking this may
have been too much for her, and she said it
was the best thing that ever happened to me. She
had raised two thousand dollars, and I remember feeling like
I was going to cry because I knew then that
for all of my sort of not mocking but joking
about the lemonade stand that's going to cure cancer, it
(00:46):
really meant something to her.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach and
inner City Memphis. And somehow that last part led to
an oscar for the film about our team. It's called undefeated, y'all.
I believe our country's problems are never going to be
(01:11):
solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits
using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Rather by an army of normal folks.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what,
maybe I can help.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
That's what Liz Scott, the.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Voice you just heard, has done. Liz's four year old daughter, Alex,
was fighting neuroblastoma cancer, and yet Alex, at four years old,
decided to dig deep, and she hosted a lemonade stand
to raise money. But not for herself so she could
get a toy, and not for herself so she could
(01:52):
make herself happy.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
But this four year old with cancer.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Decided to host a lemonade stand to raise money for
child hood cancer research.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
By the time Alex died.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
When she was eight years old, her lemonade stand Get
This raised a million bucks from four to eight years old.
By her death at eight, she'd raised a million dollars
selling lemonade and Liz, Alex's mom, and her husband Jay,
have continued building their daughter's legacy ever since. Alex's lemonade
(02:26):
Stan foundation has raised an incredible three hundred and fifty
million dollars with a literal army of normal folks hosting
lemonade stands for them across the country. Guys, listen to
every word of this interview. I cannot wait for you
to meet Liz right after these brief messages from our
(02:48):
general sponsors.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Liz Scott, Welcome to Memphis.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah, where'd you flew in from Philly?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Philadelphia?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah? Do you get a NonStop flight on that bill? Yes?
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Very easy, very easy.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, because we used to have a hub.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
We were in Northwest Hub in Memphis, and we had
NonStop everywhere with Delta Bolt Northwest.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
We lost our hub and we lost a lot of
our nonstops.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Well, I think you could go NonStop to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, we can't. Now that's that's the beautiful thing everybody.
Liz Scott is the co executive director with her husband Jay,
of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. More important, Liz is Alex's mom,
and we're going to talk about that first. For those
(03:50):
of you listening, we are at Firebirds Wood fired Grill
in Karivilt, Tennessee. I think fire Birds is a big
old sponsor of Alex's limit.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
They have been a sponsor for thirteen years, so we've
grown up together.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
A thirteen year sponsor of Alex's lemonade stands. So thank
you to Firebirds. And we are live in front of
a group of people who are interested in Liz and
Alex's story.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
So say hi everybody.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh that's weak, say hi everybody. Thank you. So fans, Liz,
what do you do? I mean, there's live people to
hear your story. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I think some of them are your fans.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
What's up to?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Your fans are your fans too? So you've got to
give yourself some credit.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
If we said, hey, Bill's going to be at Firebirds,
y'all come, we wouldn't have anybody here at all. So
it's you. Your story has so much to it and
we could do a ten hour show on it.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But very briefly, where are you from? How'd you grow up?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I grew up right outside Hartford, Connecticut in a place
called Windsor, Connecticut. Great childhood, very lucky, great place to
grow up. One of nine child Yes, so I grew
up with a lot of love and family around all
the time and had.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
A pretty typical for nine kids.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
My dad was a saint, as is my mom. He
was a nuclear power plant engineer. Wow, so he specialized
in I think, like how you get rid of the waita.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Like kindling on each other? And beds?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I mean, how how do you? How do you?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
We all had our own beds. At least I was
number seven, so I, you know, may have had it
a little more cushy than some of the older ones.
We all had our own beds, but we did. I
shared a room until high school. And in fact, I
remember when you know, as somebody moved to college, that's
it your room. After a little while, your room, what's gone? Yeah?
And I remember my mom just assumed I would want
(06:04):
to move. Or my sister moved to my other sister's room,
and I was devastated. I loved sharing a room with
my sister.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
That's awesome. So you and Jamie, where'd that happen?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
We met at Windsor high school. Were high school sweethearts,
no way, Yes, So we had a similar upbringing in
many ways. He's one of five. We didn't know each
other until high school, and we dated not only in
high school but all through college. We both went to
the University of Connecticut, go Huskies. I'm sure you've heard
of them. They're a really good basketball program.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, but they're stinking football and that's what we care about.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's actually true.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I know it is all right.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So sweet American, wonderful life.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Married. I think, how many kids in total do you have?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We have four children. So we got married right after
college young twenty two twenty three, and then we had
our first or oldest at twenty five, and Alex was
born when I was twenty six. My husband was twenty seven,
so we had would go on to have three kids
in four years, and Alex was our second child, and
then we had two other boys.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
And what were you and Jay doing for a living?
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So after we graduated from Yukon, we my husband really
wanted He had his own painting business in college that
was like pretty big, but he didn't want to do
that forever. So he decided he wanted to start his
own business, and he very smartly researched and decided that
coffee was the next big thing. This was nineteen ninety two,
(07:36):
and wanted to open like the first on the campus
what we called gourmet coffee cappuccino espresso back in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
And can you tell me he's a founder of Starbucks.
We're all leaving.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Well, no, it was called the Java Joint. And because
we were young and as you can and now I
know now as a fifty five year old, I would
be like, yeah, we can't do that. We went to
the school, we said we want to open something right
in the middle of campus said we would love that,
but we're not giving you electricity, we're not giving you water.
So we had a cart maid that was electric powered,
propane powered espresso machine, opened up shop and from day
(08:14):
one we loved it and the campus loved it. And
my first son was born shortly after we opened that,
and then after it was very successful. We were actually
the week Alex was diagnosed, we were having a meeting
with the owner of another shop that was in Hartford,
so we were going to open our second location, and
we ended up canceling the meeting, and ultimately because of
(08:35):
her diagnosis, we not only canceled and didn't open the
second shop, but we sold the Java Joint.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So the point is, briefly, just to establish kind of
who you are. You're one of nine, your husband's one
of five high school sweethearts. He paints, you go to college,
you start your life and you have a little boy,
and now you have a little girl. You have this
budding business. You're starting a wonderful kind of normal American dream,
(09:07):
but just a life, just a normal person living life.
And Alex comes along and you're giddy because you have
a second child. And at one, I think is when
the story of Alex really begins. Take us through that.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
You're absolutely right, I mean we sort of we had
a vision right for what life could be at that
point with the two young kids in the growing business,
like we all do. And Alex was diagnosed two days
before her first birthday and everything changed after that. So
much good came from it, but certainly, you know, there
(09:52):
were many, many harder times and we ever anticipated as
parents when you have children of kind of what my happen?
That was not really something that we thought would happen.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
A child with cancer, Tell me what it was.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
So she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, which is.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Originally she had a tumor. That's all you knew. Yes,
kind of.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Everybody listening and joining us needs to understand I'm asking
questions about ultimately the death of your daughter. So I
want to be empathetic and respectful, but I also think
it's really important for people to have perspective. So I
don't want to be pushy here, but I think it's
(10:39):
important that people understand the evolution of your mind as
a parent as well as what Alex went through, because
I get she had neuroblastoma, but really, your first thing
was my daughter has a tumor.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
That's right, that's right, that's very thank you for saying that,
because when she was first and we were told it
was a tumor, I still didn't think she had cancer.
In fact, my sister gave me a book that was
called When Your Child Has Cancer or something along those lines,
and they put us on the oncology floor and I
was not happy about it. We don't, I don't why would.
(11:16):
I don't need this book and I don't need to
be on this floor. She has a tumor, she doesn't
have cancer. So it took me a little while to
accept the fact that we were what we were dealing
with was cancer.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
So what they have to do for this tumor.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Well, the first thing they did was they felt she
needed an immediate tumor resection. So surgery to remove the
tumor was very large in her abdomen and wrapping around
her spine, so they felt like it needed to come out.
They did that surgery the day before her first birthday.
She came out of surgery. They were doing it in
two parts, front and then back, so belly and then spine.
(11:55):
After the belly surgery to remove the bulk of the tumor,
she came out and they said, you know, we might
wait to do the spinal surgery now. And she was
in the ICU. It had been a long day and
they started to seem like they were concerned about something.
They asked us to leave, and a few minutes later
they came back in and told us that during removing
(12:15):
this large tumor was so large that some of her
blood vessels were in the middle of it, and her
spinal cord blood flow was compromised and she was paralyzed
from the chest down, and they wanted to bring her
right back into surgery to make sure it wasn't the
spinal tumor that was causing it. So she went back
into surgery. Came out of surgery at one or two
(12:35):
am on her first birthday, and I just remember sitting there.
People had brought balloons for her and some presents for her,
and just holding her hand and thinking, this is your
child's first birthday, right, there's so much meaning in that,
and just wondering what life if she survived, what kind
(12:56):
of life she would have if she was going to
be paralyzed. And it was one of our lowest moments.
But I think really quickly she just showed me, as
she did many times in her life, that that's not
what you're thinking about in those times. Right where you're
thinking about is moving forward and getting better and enjoying
(13:19):
the good days. And she really did that from the
very beginning. She showed us how to do that.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And now a few messages from our gender sponsors, But first,
I hope you'll consider signing up to join the army
at normal folks dot us. By signing up, you'll receive
a weekly email with short episodes summaries in case you
happen to miss an episode, or if you prefer reading
about our incredible guests, we'll.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Be right back.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
As a parent and my children, Alex hates when I
use this adjective, but I consider my children delicious.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I savor them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
They're the greatest blessing in Lisa, in my life and
whenever any of our children have been sick and we
dealt with one that had some real problems. In that moment,
you want to be tough and strong for your kid,
but you're also dealing with this juxtaposition of devastation inside.
(14:47):
You balance that for me because that am I wrong?
Or is that you.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Are absolutely right? I remember after being told as new
and sitting with her for a minute, they had this
little room we could go into that was private, and
Jay and I were both sitting in the room, not
even able to comfort each other, just crying, you know, sobbing, sobbing,
hands on head, just spiraling. And then one of the
(15:17):
nurses knocked and she said, you know, we already mentioned
I have a big family. That a couple of my
sisters were there, and I literally said, I can't do this.
I can't talk to anybody else right now. I can't.
I can't do it. But very quickly something inside me
just said, you know, you have to do this. You
(15:39):
have children depending on you, right you can't sit in
here and feel sorry. You have to get out there
and do the things that you need to do as
a mom, and opened that door, honestly, and never really
looked back to that moment except to say that I'm
glad something inside of me told me just to stop,
(16:03):
get out there and do what you need to do.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
As we unfold the rest of the story. The reason
I wanted to hear that from you, which you and
I've never met her talked ever before. Now, I had
a sense that that's what you'd say. And I think
it's important because these years later, as we celebrate this
amazing organization and all that you've done, and we see this,
(16:29):
you said it, so I'm allowed to do it now,
a fifty five year old woman who's raised a family,
and we celebrate all of this. I think it's really
important that we're cognizant of and remember the trauma and
the tragedy and the pain and then the strength to
(16:50):
overcome it.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Normal folks experience that. Normal people.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
We have moneys, family problems, sick people, we have marital problems,
we have financial issues, we have all this crap that
heaps up on us and beats us up in life.
And the beauty of an army of normal folks is
people who overcome that and do things not because they're
(17:20):
bequeathed with this great opportunity, but despite what they're faced with,
and that strength is what's inspiring. And I just want
to remind everybody this is born from a family who
were devastated by one year old dying child. And certainly
(17:46):
there's a lot to celebrate, and we're going to get
to that, but if we lose fact of the true
obstacles and the true trauma of this, I think we
diminish the beauty of a success.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Makes sense, it.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Makes a lot of sense, and I really appreciate you
saying that because I often feel that the hardship that
Alex went through pretty much her entire life is easily
overlooked because of the incredible inspiration that she left us,
and even the stories I tell, which are very inspiring
(18:22):
about her, behind those stories was the fact that she
had this strength and she had this perspective because of
what happened to her in her life, and her life
was really, really hard.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
So you're left with a child who is now possibly
paralyzed one year old, and she grows tell us about it.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So as far as the paralysis goes, within a few
weeks she started showing signs of being able to move
her legs when we asked her to and started physical therapy,
and without spending too much time on that whole story,
eventually she really she screamed and fussed through every physical
therapy session, but she did what she needed to do.
Her goal was to be able to walk without leg braces,
(19:12):
and she eventually did it. She could kind of walk
across the room with touch points, and that was alone
was an incredible accomplishment because she was still considered pretty
significantly paralyzed and had no sensation in her legs. She
also went on to so when a child is diagnosed
with cancer, there's a protocol typically unless it's super rare,
(19:32):
and the protocol is designed to be the same at
pretty much every institution that's treating your child, and it's
designed to get your child to a cure ultimately, hopefully
except for those unfortunate rare ones where there's no cure still,
and in her case, there was a path to a cure,
and we we started down that path, which included surgery, chemotherapy,
(19:54):
Radiation therapy had a lot of stops and starts because
it would work and then stop working. So we were
seeing making second opinions and third opinions with in collaboration
with our doctor in Hartford. We were in Hartford still
at the time, after three plus years of treatment, we
all of our second and third opinions agreed that there
(20:16):
really wasn't much anything left to try for her. She
was three going on four and we were told she
was incurable and we were out of options known options.
So that's when again another moment where we had to
face this reality.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
That's a good shot.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It was, it was, It was. It was even harder
than the diagnosis because when she was diagnosed, you have
this hope that she's going to get better. You know,
you're going through this treatment with the idea that your
child is going to be cured and you can picture
them in ten years or twenty years, or you know,
at their wedding or whatever, you know, whatever it is
(20:57):
you dream about for your children as they grow. But
once you hear incurable, all of those things are taken
away immediately.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I'm trying to put myself in your shoes, and I
guess my my reaction as a father would be, well,
first question, how long do we have? And second thing
is what are we going to do to make the
best of that time?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Is that what you do.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
More or less. I mean, our thought was along the
lines of how much time. We felt like there were
stones left unturned, and we weren't ready to just take one, two,
three opinions and assume that that was the right path.
And the biggest reason we did that because that is
a path and sometimes parents have to make that decision,
(21:55):
is because she was doing pretty well on her good
days when she felt good. The cancer in her bones,
which is what the problem was at this point, was
causing her so much pain that we felt like not
treating her would only make that worse. So the days,
however long, she had, would not be good quality time.
So we started approaching different places to find out if
(22:16):
they had something that could help her. And that was
probably the words we use. We didn't ask for a cure.
We knew that no one was going to promise that,
but we wanted her to have a treatment that was
different than what she had and something that could maybe
give her good quality time and relieve her pain. And
that is literally what we found with a doctor in Philadelphia,
which honestly has led to so much, including her lemonade stand.
(22:38):
That's the power we learned A.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Voice y'all just said okay and moved to Philly.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, so we didn't move right away. We traveled to
Philadelphia for a consul. This was incredibly exciting. It was
a targeted therapy back in nineteen ninety nine, which was
kind of a buzzword then but not necessarily reality, something
that her tumors would soak up, but had far less
(23:04):
toxicity than chemotherapy and everything she had been through. He
really felt like it would help Herry. He had given
it to one child before. So we traveled here with
so much hope, but at the same time, you know,
you always guard yourself from having too much hope because
so much had disappointed. And she came out of that
hospital room. She was in isolation for three days. Essentially
(23:24):
we could go in and out, but not for extended
periods because she herself was radioactive from this treatment. She
came out of that treatment all smiles and she said
that treatment worked. Let's go shopping because that was her
fun thing to do when she valcated something. Yes, and
we went shopping for a Christmas dress. And that was
also like very symbolic because sort of dreading the upcoming holidays.
(23:48):
Now we had this child who said, I feel good,
Let's go get a Christmas dress. And we went back
to Connecticut, and we continued to travel back and forth
to Philadelphia, with our home hospital still being Connecticut coordinating things.
But after a year of doing that and me, after
a long day at the hospital, deciding we should just
drive home, getting on the Garden State Parkway South, which
(24:11):
might not mean much to anybody here unless they've been
on the Garden State Parkway, not realizing I was going
the wrong way because I was very distracted, until two
hours later when we were like almost in Cape May
and then turning around and having to drive six hours home,
got home, and we said, this isn't working for us anymore.
My son was in first grade. He liked to come
(24:33):
with us. We were getting a notice from the school
that he had missed too much school because we kept
pulling him out to travel. My husband had a commissioned
sales job in Connecticut, which was great, but he needed
to work to make money. A lot of things weren't
working for us, except for the fact that we had
this amazing support system. And then one day his boss said,
how would you like to transfer to Philadelphia, which was
(24:57):
he was selling medical books which was a bigger tear.
It was less overnight travel, and essentially he would it
would be a great opportunity, and we felt like we
couldn't say no to that. It was a place we
wanted to be for our child and for our family,
so we jumped at the chance. But it was a
very very hard move.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
So now you're in Philly, you have some hope that
at least there's some quality of life, even though that's
not a change that sets the stage for this kid
wearing you out and irritating you about wanting to start.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
A limonade stance. Yes, and that's kind of the beginning.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
It is the beginning. In fact, a lot of people
don't know this. Her first stand started in Connecticut. So
after we came to Philadelphia in that treatment worked, she
about a month later started talking about having a lemonade standing, which.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Was actually irritating.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Well, it wasn't so much irritating as yeah, maybe a
little pestering. So the first time she mentioned it, she
was still pretty sick. She was in the hospital for
an extended stay for another therapy, and I just said,
as we all do when you have especially when you
have many children. You know, you put them off sometimes
when it's not something that's important to you. And it
(26:27):
was January in Connecticut, so I said, oh, sure, we
can have a lemonade stand when you get out of
the hospital, when it gets warmer. But then she would
ask every month, and then.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Nobody January is going to be on the street.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
And then she persisted for about six months, persisted, and yes,
I would say, at times I was a little felt
pestered by the lemonade stand talk. So finally, one day
in June of two thousand, she was four and a half.
She was doing pretty well because of the response she
had to this. She still had cancer, but ed reduced
it a lot. She was feeling good. She said, we
(27:02):
still haven't had my lemonade stand. And now it's hot out.
So she would not like the Memphis heat. She did
not tolerate heat very well. And now it's too hot.
It's hot out. And I said, Alex, what do you
want to buy? So badly thinking let's skip the stand
and we'll go buy go to this store, get the
ten dollars toy and just call it a day. And
(27:23):
she said, I'm not keeping the money. I'm giving it
to my doctor, so they can help kids the way
they helped me. And that's why I believe at four
and a half it was born out of that brand.
We told her it was a brand new treatment that
helped her and made her feel better, and she wanted
other kids to have that same opportunity. And yes, she
was only four and a half.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That in and of a self is extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
It really is. And you know, her older brother was
similar she was. She was always sort of beyond her years.
So with the two of them, it it wasn't Actually
it was cute to me, and I was surprised, but
it wasn't surprising that Alex would come up with that.
But then when I had my two other boys, and
I don't know if they're gonna listen to this. Really
they were just normal four year olds, I'm gonna say.
(28:10):
But one day my husband and I, when one of
them was four, was like watching them play and they
were like being in something on the wall and then
like trying to hit their head on the wall maybe
to see if it felt different. And he was like,
this is the age she was when she started her lemonade.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Stand and now we have to meet heads.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
But they were more I realized and that that was
more typical than she was. But she didn't have a
typical life to that point. And I would say my
older son also did not, because he grew up with this.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
So you warned her, Okay, fine, Alex, that's sweet because
you're being sweet and everything, will have this stupid lemonade stand.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I didn't say it was stupid.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Well i'm my words, and I didn't think it was
sack and well you're gonna make ten twenty bucks, just
be prepared.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yes, So I did think right, I didn't think it
was it was stupid. I did think it was really
sweet and it was adorable. That was my main thought
was just keep in mind this was two thousand kids
weren't doing lemonade stands for charity. I think that's part
of why people gravitated to this idea. This was this
was something Alex helped create for kids, and kids do
(29:17):
lemonade stands, not just for us, but for all kinds
of causes now so, but mostly I thought, this is
so Alex. She thinks she's going to cure cancer with
a lemonade stand. Isn't that adorable? And I called my sister,
one of my sisters who also has four kids, and said,
you know, can you what do you do on Saturday?
Can you come by Alex. It's having a lemonade stand.
(29:38):
I'm afraid no one's going to show up. And she's
really excited about it. And as we were hanging up,
I said, oh, by the way, she's donating the money
to the hospital, and she said, you're kidding me and
I said no, like sort of like, isn't that so Alex?
She said, I'm going to call the newspaper and I
thought that was the funniest thing. I was like, no
one's going to care about her lemonade stand, and she said, oh,
you know in the.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
South, what we say about people that have these grandiose
ideas that are obviously ridiculous, what bless their hearts?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yes, exactly, bless her heart. She's going to hear her
cancer with lemonade.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Exactly, it's precious. Would bless her heart?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And I even you know, thought it. So we were
all about it, right, So we immediately set up that weekend.
My sister ended up calling the paper and she was right.
They did care. They did a little and you know,
you have like back when we had printed newspapers, and
everybody read them. The local section that's like two year
geographical part of the city. They printed something right on
(30:35):
the front of that about the little girl having a
lemonade stand and donating the money. And even then we
weren't necessarily anticipating that people would come out who we
didn't know. But that morning she she knew, she knew
so the night before, of course, she had to get
a new lemonade outfit. The night before, she went to
bed in her lemonade clothes because she said, I think
it's going to be really busy, and I want to
(30:56):
be up early and ready. So her and her brother,
and also keep in mind she was still not a
steady walker, but her and her brother got up early
the next morning.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, let's let's keep in mind. This is a girl
who's got no failing in her legs. Yes and treatments
four and a half. Yes, get you ready for a lemonade?
Speaker 3 (31:16):
She gets.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
So.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Any of you that can't get up for work on
time or school on time, George, if you can't get
up for school on time, you remember that.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Okay, she got up early, Say yes, sir, thank you,
go ahead, George. Is Alex's kid, he's.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I think George is an early riser. I bet George.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Loves to get all right, So here she is, she's
going to be.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
She gets up early, you know, gets us out of
bed early. She's got to make the lemonade. Wouldn't you
know it? By seven am, somebody's knocking on the door saying,
I know it doesn't start until later, but I'm going
out of town and I had to meet you and
give you my donation. And it was NonStop. I think
my husband must have gone out for lemonade. I don't
know how many times that day because we kept running out.
(31:59):
At the end of the day, I honestly thought it
was too much for her. A lot of people don't
realize this about her, but she didn't like attention like that.
It wasn't about her. It almost embarrassed her. George can
probably relate to this. Made her a little uncomfortable that
people were talking about her and asking her for things.
And she was very gracious as a four year old,
(32:21):
as gracious as a four year old can be beyond.
But at the end, and it was hot, so I
kept thinking how she'd been saying it was too hot,
And at the end of the day, I said, what
did you think, Alex, thinking this may have been too
much for her, and she said it was the best
thing that ever happened to me. She had raised two
thousand dollars, and I remember feeling like I was going
(32:42):
to cry because I knew then that for all of
my sort of not mocking but joking about the lemonade
stand that's going to cure cancer, it really meant something
to her. It really meant something to her, so much
so that after we moved to Philadelphia she starts talking
about having a lemonade sand again.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So Alex passed at eight years and a couple months.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Old, Yes, eight and a half, eight and a half.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
And incidentally, everybody, it's July. I'm not supposed to timestamp
because Alex back there gets mad at me about time
stamping Alex the producer. Oh incidentally, if anybody ever gets
involved in something we have a producer, you will find
out that producers are pains in the butt. Everybody else
likes them, but if you're my shoes. So anyway, I'm
time stamping this for everybody. Today is July thirtieth. Alex
(33:37):
died in August first, so we are two days from
the anniversary of Alex's passing, Yes, and from that four
and a half year old, pestering bless her heart, four
and a half year old little girl until the day
of her passing, this child raised a million.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Dollars she would have an annual lemonade stand. More and
more people heard about it. It became like a news
national news story, and it really lit a fire in her.
And honestly, as she got sicker in two thousand and four,
we weren't talking about lemonade. We knew if she made
it to her stand in June that it would be
her last stand. And she decided she was going to
(34:25):
raise a million dollars that year before she passed away.
And once again I thought I was sad because I
thought this, there's no way she's going to raise a
million dollars in this amazing thing. The thing that ever
marked yeah, not even so much bless her Heart, as
this incredible thing that she's accomplished is now going to
(34:48):
be disappointing because she's not going to reach that ultimate goal.
But when she was asked, she said, if everyone has
lemonade stands, I think we can do it. And it
became this amazing call to action, and that turned into
a movement of lemonade stands, all happening at the same
time to help her reach her goal. And by the
middle of July we were able to tell her she
(35:08):
would reach her goal, and she passed away not even
two weeks later. So she was obviously holding on to
see that goal met, and she was very determined that
things were going to be different for kids after her
than they were for her, into a certain level of stubbornness,
and I would say, almost like a fixation on meeting
(35:30):
this goal. Even when we were saying things like you're
too sick to travel to do that interview, It's okay
if you don't go to the stand, you don't have
to do this, she would just shut it down and
say I have to do this.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Liz Scott,
and you don't want to miss part two that now I'm.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Able to listen to.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Together, guys, we can change this country and it starts
with you. I'll see you in part two.
Host
Bill Courtney
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