Under any circumstances, a cancer diagnosis is devastating, but it’s even more so when a child gets the news.

How families react is critical and, as one Alameda family showed recently, running a lemonade stand, of all things, can be an integral part of the treatment process — not just for themselves but for other children in the same predicament. When Alameda’s Charlie Laufer was diagnosed with thyroid cancer two years ago at the age of 3, her mother, Molly Laufer, began connecting with other parents of children with cancer and was told about a national organization that fundraises by running lemonade stands to help fight childhood cancer.

Called Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, the group is named in honor of Alexandra “Alex” Scott, who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma before her first birthday. At age 4 in the year 2000, in an effort to help the doctors who treated her, she followed the time-honored tradition of young entrepreneurs all over the country, opened a front-yard lemonade stand in her Connecticut home and raised $2,000.

Her efforts sparked a national movement that raised more than $1 million before Alex passed away at eight in 2004. Since then Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation has raised more than $300 million and funded more than 1,500 cancer research projects. When first diagnosed, Molly Laufer was more concerned with dealing with Charlie’s treatment, including regular trips to Philadelphia to see specialists.

Then late last year she heard a podcast with Alex’s mom, Liz, and began poking around the organization’s website. There she found out that one of the trials that the foundation funded was Larotrectinib, a drug the FDA approved in 2018, six years before Charlie started taking it. “It was a drug that is very novel. It’s a targeted therapy, and it had a huge impact on her prognosis and on her outcome from the disease,” says Molly.

Inspired that the foundation had raised money to develop a drug that played a pivotal role in helping her daughter, the Laufers decided to open the “Team Laufer Lemonade Stand” in the front yard of their Otis Avenue home in late June.

“After realizing the impact that Alex’s Lemonade stand had directly on us in two ways — the one-to-one peer-parent support as well as realizing that their philanthropy had funded the research that developed the drug that Charlie was on, I knew that it was an organization that we wanted to become a part of, and that’s why we decided to host a lemonade stand this year,” says Molly.

Since Molly is from the Philadelphia area originally, she had family she could stay with on trips there for Charlie’s treatment. She could also take time off from work more easily as she’s self employed. For these reasons, all of the $4,613 raised through donations and the 70 or so cups of Country Time lemonade poured was donated to the foundation to help other families travel for treatment.

“We were able to afford plane tickets, but we know that that’s certainly not the case for all families. And we realize now how prohibitively expensive that can be. So we decided for our fundraiser that we would allocate all the money raised to their (Alex’s Lemonade Stand) Travel for Care program,” says Molly.

Today Charlie is thriving.

“Charlie’s doing amazing today,” says Molly. “She’s in clinical remission, so her disease is completely managed. She’ll be an endocrine patient for the rest of her life. She currently does not have a thyroid, and so there’s obviously a lot that has to get managed when it relates to your metabolic system. She does ballet, she plays soccer …”

“I barely do soccer,” Charlie interjects.

“You barely do soccer,” says Molly. “You’re right. We did take a break from soccer for the summer, but prior to this, she was doing soccer.”

One of the aspects of the lemonade stand that Charlie, who is a kindergartner at Otis Elementary School this academic year, says she really enjoyed was the visit from several Alameda police officers who came bearing coveted stickers. The officers say it was fun for them too.

“I met Charlie and the Laufer family a couple of years ago, and since then I’ve been lucky enough to stay in touch with them,” says Kevin Horikoshi, an acting lieutenant with the Alameda police. “Charlie’s story is one that stays with you. From the moment I met her, I saw how strong and brave she is, and it’s impossible not to want to support her in any way you can.

“Charlie and her sisters (Lily and Alex) have always enjoyed interacting with police officers, so when her parents invited me to Alex’s Lemonade Stand, I knew I wanted to bring as many officers as possible. Without hesitation, most of the officers working that day volunteered to come along.”

For more information on Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation and the Laufer family’s efforts, visit alexslemonade.org/2026/charlies-lemonade-stand online.

Paul Kilduff is a San Francisco-based writer who also draws cartoons. He can be reached at pkilduff350@gmail.com.