Alex’s Lemonade Stand raises money, gets love on Boulevard
SELLING LEMONADE on Larchmont Boulevard are (left to right) Suzanne Goin, Alex Lentz, Aaliyan Motivala and Avery Eisenbauer.
CROWDS gather to purchase lemonade and support child cancer research. Photo courtesy of Levain
Kids and chefs opened a lemonade stand in front of Levain Bakery on Aug. 18 to raise money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand, an organization that supports cancer research for children. For each donation, the organizers shouted their thanks, making a small scene. This lively reaction attracted quite a crowd to the stand, encouraging additional passersby to purchase homemade lemonade.
The stand’s organizer, Alex Lentz, daughter of chefs Suzanne Goin and David Lentz, is a junior at Polytechnic School in Pasadena. She said she’s “been making lemonade and raising money for this organization for as long as I can remember.” In fact, she made all of the day’s lemonade herself from scratch. It took the entire previous day and a lot of lemons!
Lentz relayed that the regular Larchmont merchants were “so kind and welcoming, which made the stand so much more fun and enjoyable. We even got free ice cream from Salt & Straw.”
Levain pitched in by contributing a portion of that day’s sales of their lemon loaf to help support the endeavor. The bakery’s employees were enthusiastic about the stand and donned bandanas from Alex’s.
In total, about $1,200 was raised.
The stand on Larchmont was part of a qualifying event to attend “LA Loves Alex’s Lemonade: Kids’ Campaign” taking place at UCLA on Sat., Sept. 23. Lentz is a co-chairperson of that event. For more information, visit alexslemonade.org.
Alex’s Lemonade Stand was founded by Alex, age 4, who wanted her doctors to have money to cure cancer for all children. She started with a single lemonade stand in 2000 that raised $2,000. Four years later, two weeks before her death, she and a network of lemonade stands had raised $1 million, her goal and the seed money for the foundation.
Category: Entertainment