“The one first grader this year was like, ‘I have birthday money and I’m really going to make a big donation to this,'” said Denise Roskey, a basic skills teacher at the township’s Joyce Kilmer Elementary School. “He was really counting out his birthday money.
“So kids really get invested.”
That exchange was among student reactions to the Alex’s lemonade stand donation drive at the school, an annual fundraiser that this year raised about $5,000.
Roskey recalled another first-grader who donated all her Christmas money: $100.
“The student’s mother said that in December, when (the student) got (the money) at Christmas, she knew exactly where she wanted it to go,” Roskey recounted. ” … And her parents were like, ‘Are you sure? Why don’t you just give $20.’
“No mom,'” Roskey said the student responded, ‘I want to give the full thing.
“And she held onto that money from December until May,” Roskey added. “And she gave it to me and I cried. Because that’s very generous for a first grader, at that age, to be so caring to do that.”
The fundraiser was started in 2006 by Roskey, then a fourth-grade teacher.
“I wanted to do a service project for my class,” she explained. “But I didn’t want it to be something, adult things, kids aren’t really into. So I wanted to show them that they could impact the world at their age. So I looked for charities, kids supporting kids, and this (Alex’s lemonade stand) is one of the top ones,” she added of the national cancer support organization.
The charity is named for Alex Scott, who died in 2005 from neuroblastoma and had already raised money through her own lemonade stand for kids with cancer.
The Kilmer lemonade stand initially took up about half the school day, with nearly $1,200 raised in the first year. Roskey wasn’t sure she could keep the drive going at Kilmer, but was encouraged by others.
“This is only supposed to be a one-and-done type of thing,” Roskey noted. “But just like Alex’s story, where it was so successful the first year … people were like, ‘Well now you have to do it again.’ … So then, over the years, it got bigger and bigger.”
Now, the teacher gets to school at 6:45 a.m. to start setting up an event that involves a childhood cancer museum created by students; a station for donations of cut hair; and this year, a dunk tank where teachers and the principal would get wet.
Roskey said eight people donated hair that goes to the Children With Hair Loss Foundation, a Michigan nonprofit that supports children and young adults facing medically related hair loss.
The Kilmer cancer museum displays pictures and stories researched by students of kids who have died or are suffering from the disease. Roskey remembered being told by a substitute teacher that the setup might be too morbid for kids, but she thinks it’s important for students to understand the issue so they can see the change they make and appreciate their own health.
” … I want them to know this is important,” Roskey pointed out. ” … So I don’t shield the kids from the truth of how terrible some of the kids going through this have it.”
One of the posters created by a student for the Alex’s lemonade stand fundraiser at Joyce Kilmer Elementary.
Since 2006, the cumulative fundraisers have raised $76,950, and Roskey expected about $5,000 more this year. The high mark was $6,338 in 2017.
The effort costs about $2,000, half of which was covered this year by a grant from the New Jersey Education Association. The rest is raised by raffles and T-shirt sales.
All these years later, Roskey still has former students who’ve returned as high-school seniors or college students to reminisce about when they participated.
“Some of the high schoolers are seniors now and they remember doing this when they were in fifth grade,” she emphasized. “And they say it’s one of their core memories. So they were so excited to … come back and help work the stand, so to speak.”
Superintendent Kwame Morton came by to check out this year’s stand and said the effort is a positive example of what the community is capable of.
“Ms. Roskey reached out and said this is the 20th year,” he recounted. “It’s like hard for me to believe that it’s been taking place for that long. But it’s just one example of the sevice-oriented attitude that our staff and our schools and community take …
“It was just beautiful to be out there today and to see the energy and the enthusiasm.”
A sign on display in front of the school marks 20 years of fundraising with Alex’s lemonade stand to benefit kids with cancer.
