“L.A. Loves Alex's Lemonade Stand returns for their 12th annual cookout in Los Angeles at UCLA’s Royce Quad scheduled for Saturday, October 5, 2024, and tickets are now on sale.”
“The 2023 event was an overwhelming success raising more than $1.3 million for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. Presented at Royce Quad on the campus of UCLA, the cookout is always a perfect day for chefs and fans to come together to support childhood cancer research.”
The list of participating high-profile chefs includes the top rung of L.A. chefs and prominent culinary talents from across the USA. Also on display are premium wines and standout spirits. Since the beginning the local event has been coordinated by Restaurateur Caroline Styne, and Chefs Suzanne Goin and David Lentz.
“Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) emerged from the front yard lemonade stand of 4-year-old Alexandra “Alex” Scott, who was fighting cancer and wanted to raise money to find cures for all children with cancer. Her spirit and determination inspired others to support her cause, and when she passed away at the age of 8, she had raised $1 million. Since then, the Foundation bearing her name has evolved into a national fundraising movement. Today, ALSF is one of the leading funders of pediatric cancer research in the U.S. and Canada raising more than $250 million so far, funding over 1,000 research projects and providing programs to families affected by childhood cancer. For more information, visit AlexsLemonade.org”
Joining us to preview L.A. Loves Alex’s Lemonade is Co-Founder of the L.A. event, Chef Suzanne Goin and her daughter, Alex Lentz heading the local Kids Campaign.
This is your captain speaking. I'm honor Youtan, captain of Holland America Line, MS Fersten. You're listening to the so-called restaurant show on AM A30 KLAA. And welcome back. It is the SoCal restaurant show and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon right here on AM A30 KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024. And it can also catch us on the AM A30 KLAA, excuse me, Angels app. And we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. They're a handful of food and wine charity events that are done in the greater LA area every year. These are always massive undertakings, but the one that has really shined for every year that they've done it because the chefs that participate really enjoy being there. And they have their A game. They enjoy chatting with the guests. And it's for a very worthy cause because this is to benefit research to overcome child cancer. And this is LA loves Alex's lemonade stand. And more than a decade ago, Chef Suzanne Goan, who is a multiple James Beard Foundation award winner, went to the Philadelphia event and came back inspired and somehow was able to finagle her husband and also her business partner, restaurateur Carolyn Stein, to take on doing this tremendous event in Los Angeles as volunteers. We love to support the event on the SoCal restaurant show because it's so pure. And joining us this morning is the co-founder in LA of LA loves Alex's lemonade stand, Chef Suzanne Goan, and also her daughter, Alex Lentz, who is involved in the kid's effort to raise money for Alex's. Ladies, good morning and welcome to the show. Let's do something a little different and start out with Alex. Alex, why is this cause LA loves Alex's lemonade stand important? And why have you donated so much time to the kid's program in LA? Yeah, I think this event is really important because we're trying to find a cure for child who's cancer and obviously that's a very weighty cause. But for me, I've always grown up around the event. I was always very connected to the story and the mission of the foundation always hearing about Alex's talk. And because of that, I think when I turned into an age, I think I was like seven or eight. I thought to myself, you know, I've always been to the event, but I'm not really, I'm kind of just going to enjoy it. And so I decided that with a group of friends, I really wanted to start raising money as well. And that was just to carry on Alex's legacy with kids helping other kids by having lemonade stand. Alex, that's a wow now. Before we have you talk about what the local kids campaign is all about, and also congratulations, you've picked up a media sponsor for the kids campaign. KTLA5, pretty impressive. I know that's a big help. Give our listeners a little bit of a background of the original Alex of LA loves Alex's lemonade stand. So Alex Scott was diagnosed with, Alex Scott was diagnosed with Mariblastoma when she was a kid, was four. And for her, that was something that she battled pretty much the entirety of her life. When she was four, she got treatments that really helped her. And she decided that she really wanted other kids to have that opportunity to get that treatment because it made her feel really much better. So she started having these lemonade stand in front of her house, raising money, and all of the proceeds would go to her local childhood or a local hospital. By the time she died, at age age, she'd raised over a million dollars for childhood cancer research. That's pretty incredible. Tell us a little bit about the local kids campaign. Is it still on or is it concluded for this year? No, so we are still going. So we go up until the event, which this year is October 5th. We have raised over $14,000 so far, but we're hoping to get that number up. We have a lot of amazing sponsors, which is a new program that we just started, where we kind of work together with local businesses, including people who have yankos, most of blue, super fine fire, AOC, magpie, soft serve, valary, confection, alcove, and big bit, bar, oaster of most car car in downtown LA. Mostly we just have a lot of big stands. We encourage a lot of kids to have as many stands as they can, even if they're not raising a whole lot of money. Just having stands continuously is really amazing. It helps build the camaraderie of the kids campaign as a whole. Absolutely. Let's bring Chef Suzanne into the conversation. Suzanne, you have to be pretty proud of Alex to take this on and embrace it and do what she has done to compliment what you and your team of Carolyn Stein and your husband David do for the big event every year. Oh, yeah, super rewarding. It's amazing to see what she's been doing and all these other kids in LA have been doing. I mean, so this group of kids in LA has raised over $300,000 since they started raising money. And it started basically when my kids were in elementary school. There was a couple moms who got together and really helped organize them. And they were able to raise $300,000. They've been raised $300,000, which if you think about kids raising that much money is pretty incredible. So I would say every year, Alex tried to think about ways to grow it. And I think when she was little, it was easy because she was a cute little kid and you go outside, you sell lemonade and people want to give you money. And once you become a teenager, it's a different story. So she sort of transitioned into really trying to find other ways to raise money and also to motivate other kids. Yes, kids kind of get them involved and to continue the legacy of what they all started. Absolutely. Now, Suzanne, let's go back more than a few years, more than a decade. When you first did the Alex's lemonade stand benefit in Philadelphia, what motivated you to want to come back to Los Angeles and do this here because chefs and restaurateurs in general these days are understaffed to begin with. This is an enormous undertaking. LA is a very difficult market in terms of just getting the word out. Chefs do as many charity events as they can, but it's difficult for them to be away from their restaurants. The need is always great that's out there, but they have to pick and choose. So tell us a little bit more about your inspiration because this really has become the premiere event of its type in the greater LA area and you raised serious money. We've raised over 10 million dollars so far. Andy, thank you so much for your support. I have to say every year, you're so supportive and you sing our praises and you help us get that word out and we appreciate it so much. I'm glad I asked that you wrote a little story because it was -- I think Alex and I have a little feedback. Sorry about that. Technical difficulties. I'm glad you asked about that because actually it was David and I who were at Mark Vetsri's event in Philadelphia and we had twins who were I think a year old or something. And like you said, chefs, we go around, we do as many charity events as we can. And especially if our friends are asking, you know, Mark Vetsri asked me to come. I remember we were so tired. We each had, you know, we each had three restaurants. We had twins down the plane. We got there. You know, we're giving out our dish and all of a sudden they stopped. They said, okay, everybody stop serving. We're going to do the presentation. And actually Liz Scott, who's -- you know, the foundation is still run by Alex's parents, Liz and Jay Scott, who are incredible people. And Liz got up and told the story of Alex. You know, her daughter who had been diagnosed with cancer actually when she was one and had managed to raise a million dollars by the time she died at age eight. And just hearing Liz tell this story and I think having our little babies at home, I just -- I think we just both could not imagine what they went through. And just to hear the story of a little girl who going through everything she was going through where her mind was was actually helping others. It's so incredible. I mean, Liz tells the story about when Alex had the first lemonade stand. They didn't want her to have a lemonade stand. They were like, she was sick. They were all overwhelmed. They were just said, they said, Alex, what is it you -- what are you trying -- what do you want to bike or a teddy bear? What are you trying to raise money for? And Alex said, that would be so selfish. I'm not raising money for myself. I'm raising it to give to my doctor so they can help other kids. So I think she was just a very magical special spirit. And hearing that story, David and I were bawling, crying. We were just so moved. It wasn't -- yeah, and so we got -- and it was like -- I mean, it was serendipitous because it was a moment where the foundation was pretty well known on the east coast, but they did not have a presence at all on the west coast. And that was something that they wanted to do. And it's funny. They said, well, if you could just help us kind of get the word out. And we don't want to only help get the word out. We want to raise money. So yeah, came home, told Carol and of course she was on board in like five seconds. And we just started calling our chef friends. Originally, it was only out of town chefs. So originally, I think we called 10 chefs. Not just great chefs, but also great people that we really loved and we knew what to understand the cause. And they all agreed to come. And we had our first event was a huge success. I think everyone was so moved and had such a good time. And that spirit has carried on. I would say those 10 chefs still come every year. And our only problem now is the event is it's so popular. And we get calls all the time from chefs who want to join us. And we just -- we're out of room. The fire marshal won't let us add any more. We have over 50 chefs coming. We have, I think, 75 wineries. We have mixologists. And everybody, like you said, really brings their A game, make people really -- people really, really want to be there. And I think there is something magical in the air of the energy of the event. And to me, it's probably the most meaningful thing that I do. So like you said, to have my daughter feel that same passion and work so hard to really grow the kids campaign every year. I know she told you about it, but she had this idea really of having sponsors this year. So great idea. Yeah, I called up some restaurant friends. Luckily, we have a lot of restaurant friends. And the people -- this is a different business. It's added dollar to an item. And then that dollar goes right back to the kids campaign, which goes right to Alex's lemonade stand. So we're -- kids campaign are up to over $14,000 so far. We have Volvo as a matching sponsor. So that $14,000 is really $28,000. Very nice. Yeah. And it's a combination. You know, we have kids having stands that raised -- they raised $75, $85. And then we have some groups of kids that -- there's an elementary school called -- I mean, middle school called Wish Elementary -- I'm sorry, Wish Middle School. And they last year raised $3,000. They got all the kids got together and had a big stand. And this year, their goal is $5,000. So everybody, I think once you're in, once you feel the energy of it and once you're in, you're in. And so it's really about just keeping those people engaged, but then also finding new ways to get more people involved and to raise more money. I love it. Suzanne and Alex, we're going to take a short pause here. We're going to pick up the other -- on the other side. We are talking about the LA loves Alex's lemonade stand benefit, the 12th annual cookout coming up in LA at UCLA's Royce Quad, coming up on October 5th. Again, we'll pick up the conversation on the other side. It is the SoCal restaurant show. We're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Proters and West Coast Prime Meats. Give us a minute. We'll be back.
