Lemon aid.(The Goodness Of America)

Seven-year-old Alexandra Scott resides in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, with her parents and three brothers. But the family was living in Connecticut when, two days before Alexandra's first birthday, physicians found a growth on her spinal column. It was diagnosed as neuroblastoma, an aggressive form of childhood cancer that proves fatal in about 40 percent of cases.

Alex (as she prefers to be called) underwent the first of numerous surgeries on her birthday, and has also undergone stem-cell transplants, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments. The initial surgery removed 99 percent of the tumor, but the stubborn growth persisted.

At age four, while being treated at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center (CCMC) in Hartford, Alex came up with the idea of running a lemonade stand to raise money for pediatric cancer research. Her first "stand" against cancer in July 2000 raised $2,000 (at 50 cents per cup) for CCMC.

Unfortunately, little progress was made in treating Alex's neuroblastoma. Her parents were given the name of a physician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), one of two U.S. hospitals authorized to use new experimental procedures. The physician started Alex on a radioactive iodine treatment, which stabilized her condition. So the Scotts decided to move to Wynnewood so that the family could be together while Alex underwent additional therapy at CHOP. The medical textbook company for which her father, Jason, works as a regional sales representative arranged to transfer him to Pennsylvania. In October 2001, Alex opened another stand. Students and faculty at her elementary school chipped in to help, and the effort raised around $6,000 for CHOP.

In April 2002, five-year-old Toireasa Barry, one of Alex's friends, died of neuroblastoma. Two months later, Alex ...