Alex Slitz/Daily NewsSidney Ausbrooks, 9, of Scottsville, pours a cup of lemonade Saturday at an Alex’s Lemonade Stand on Louisville Road.

Lemonade can’t cure cancer, but it has become a useful weapon in the battle to eradicate the disease in children through the work of volunteers with Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. Kids are learning important lessons, too, in giving back and civic involvement.

Some 10,000 volunteers – both young and old – set up 2,000 old-fashioned lemonade stands across the county as volunteers quenched summer thirsts and raised money for childhood cancer research during National Lemonade Days weekend, which was Friday through Sunday, with donations benefiting the foundation. Other stands will be set up June 27 and July 10 in Bowling Green.

Riley Miller, of Bowling Green, started the lemonade stands in Warren County in 2005. The teenager has raised more than $87,000. She was one of four Bowling Green residents named Jefferson Award winners earlier this year for contributions to the community.

This year, volunteers from Total Cheer in Bowling Green joined in the campaign. While raising money to fight childhood cancer is a worthwhile endeavor in itself, that’s not the reason Jennifer Holder, owner of Total Cheer, a cheerleading gym and gymnastics center, chose to host her first stand.

“I’m doing it because I want my students to learn some good life lessons, too,” said Holder, who is matching all donations from her students. “You can always be compassionate toward others and learn the importance of teamwork through community and service learning while learning the importance of teamwork through cheerleading. These are things they take through life forever.”

Lemonade Days is a three-day event held every year in memory of the foundation’s founder, cancer patient Alexandra “Alex” Scott (1996-2004), who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare form of childhood cancer, before her first birthday. At the age of 4, she decided to set up a lemonade stand to raise money to help find a cure for all children with cancer.

This year, the foundation celebrated 10 years of “standing for hope,” marking the anniversary of Alex Scott’s first front yard lemonade stand to find a cure for childhood cancers. In that time, the foundation has raised more than $30 million for childhood cancer, funded more than 150 research projects, created a travel fund program to assist families who need to travel for treatment, and developed other resources, including an annual educational symposium.

Total Cheer participates in other civic events as well, but Alex’s Lemonade Stand is special, Holder said, because her students can relate to childhood cancer.

“Their funds go primarily to young children,” Holder said. “Aside from giving money to a charity, it also reminds us how fortunate we are to be physically able to be compete and cheer.”

“Jennifer is getting them involved in the community and this is just a wonderful cause,” said Leslie Parson, whose 12-year-old daughter, Allie, volunteered during Saturday’s stand. “All of these kids have someone in their lives who has been touched by cancer. They can participate in this and raise money with their friends and do what they can to help. I wanted her to know what that feeling is like when you have done something good.”

Total Cheer volunteers raised almost $700 over the weekend, said Allie Parson, who will be a student at South Warren Middle School this fall. “Most people who stopped didn’t even buy the lemonade,” she said, “they just wanted to give money.

“I wanted to be able to know I helped someone who needs it,” she said. “To know you may help save someone’s life with just a few hours of work gave me such a good feeling.”

Allie had fun with her friends and learned an important lesson too, she said. “If you are the one who needs help, then you would want others to help you. Anytime I see Alex’s lemonade from now on, I’m going to stop and buy some because it is a really good cause,” she said.

Anyone can host a lemonade stand, or have any other type of fundraiser, according to the foundation. Lemonade stands have been organized by volunteers such as large and small businesses, inner city schoolchildren, senior centers, preschool-aged children, a juvenile detention center, college students and a group of homeless people. The foundation advises that anyone who wants to participate should register a stand through its website so one a “stand coach” can help and send support materials.

In addition to the foundation events, Country Time, the official lemonade of Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, will raise awareness by featuring the foundation on each canister of lemonade and provide vouchers to volunteer stand hosts while supplies last.

Numerous stands in the works

Bowling Green’s sixth annual Alex’s Lemonade Stand Day will be July 10.

Compton Orthodontics, 315 New Towne Drive, will host a grand stand from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. that evening. The grand stand will have a carnival atmosphere with inflatable play structures, snow cones, spin art, face painting, live music, a cornhole tournament and other free activities.

Multiple lemonade stand locations are planned for that day and June 27 in Bowling Green.

— For more locations and information, visit www.alexslemonade.org/bglemonade.