BY: ZOE HORT
Daniel Bean is an eighth-grader at Fieldston Middle School. He does an annual non-profit organization called \u201cAlex\u2019s Lemonade Stand\u201d each year, to help find a cure for cancer around the world.
\u201cIt might have just been a lemonade stand. But to me, for Alex, it was so much more.\u201d Daniel Bean, an eighth-grader at Fieldston Middle School, was only two years old when he participated in his first \u201cAlex\u2019s Lemonade Stand.\u201d Started by Alexandra Scott, a four-year-old who had been diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer, Alex\u2019s Lemonade Stands raise money to find a cure for cancer all around the world. Alex was able to do yearly lemonade stands while still fighting with her cancer treatments, but at the devastatingly young age of only eight years old, she lost her fight to cancer. Alex\u2019s story was spoken about so much that she was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show and in newspapers, which is where the Bean family first heard about the lemonade stand and knew they wanted to participate and help fight cancer.
The stand only happens once a year, so Daniel and his family put a lot of dedication to making that day constructive. First, the day before, they spend the whole day preparing: pink and yellow lemonade, Arnold Palmers, brownies, different cookies, oreo cheesecake bars, and lemon bars. There is no specific reason for these foods, and each year, they like to switch it up to prepare different foods and beverages.
On the day of the lemonade stand, Daniel and his family stand on the corner of 83rd and Madison Avenue with their refreshments. When he was younger, Daniel used to scream \u201cAlex\u2019s lemonade stand\u201d all day to get people\u2019s attention before anyone knew about it. \u201cAt the first lemonade stand, we did not get much attention,\u201d Daniel stated, \u201cbut after a couple of years it started to get better.\u201d He felt he had an advantage living in New York City since there are so many people in one big city. He felt it was very easy to spread the word and get people to become aware and donate to the organization. In fact, his friend actually started their own lemonade stand because they were inspired. On average the lemonade stand makes $1000 per session (although the non-profit also accepts online donations).
Daniel\u2019s \u201cgoals in life greatly affected his experience with the stand.\u201d He explained that \u201cstaying focused on what I do and being passionate about helping children with cancer\u201d are two of his goals. He described his passion for this organization by saying, \u201cit makes me feel better that I am a part of finding a cure for cancer.\u201d
Daniel was also inspired to be socially active by Liz Scott, who is Alex\u2019s mother and the head of the organization. He stated, \u201cbecause she has gone through so much, I feel the need to keep persevering for the good cause. It really motivates me.\u201d He also explained how depressing it was sometimes when he felt he could not do anything to help the kids directly. He felt it was \u201cunfair for kids that young have to suffer and not have a life just because of something they were diagnosed with.\u201d
Another big role model in Daniel\u2019s life is his sister. \u201cShe was always a big part of the lemonade stand because she took orders, baked the goods, and was always spreading the word and trying to do good for the community.\u201d
Daniel said he considers the lemonade stand a hobby that he would definitely want to continue, even with his own children. He wants to do various events for different charities. The most difficult thing for Daniel is \u201ckeeping positive while I know there are people dying because it is inevitable.\u201d He tries to stay happy and positive by surrounding himself with people he loves like friends and family, but he repeatedly mentioned it is hard to stay happy when there were people dying from cancer. His advice to people embarking on similar work is to \u201cdo whatever you can because anything helps. Even just being supportive helps.\u201d Even though Daniel was speaking through Zoom, it was exceedingly clear how impassioned he is to help people no matter what the cause. He believes \u201cthe lemonade stand is one of the best experiences of my life,\u201d and that there is nothing he would do differently. He finished by saying, \u201cI would not take anything back, because Alex did not have that choice.\u201d
NOTE: 8th graders wrote their own versions of THE NEW YORKER\u2019S Talk of the Town this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BY: ZOE HORT Daniel Bean is an eighth-grader at Fieldston Middle School. He does an annual non-profit organization called \u201cAlex\u2019s Lemonade Stand\u201d each year, to help find a cure for cancer around the world. \u201cIt might have just been a lemonade stand. But to me, for Alex, it was so much more.\u201d Daniel Bean, an eighth-grader at Fieldston Middle School, was only two years old when he participated in his first \u201cAlex\u2019s Lemonade Stand.\u201d Started<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":282,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[402,58],"tags":[],"coauthors":[404],"class_list":["post-5476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fieldstonian-middle-school-paper","category-slider"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/282"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5479,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions\/5479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5476"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}