While Black Friday and Cyber Monday officially kick off the holiday shopping season, Giving Tuesday (held on the first Tuesday following Thanksgiving) kicks off the holiday giving season. 

First celebrated in 2012, Giving Tuesday began as a social media hashtag (#GivingTuesday) and has since grown into a global movement to celebrate the power of giving back and funding the charities that depend on the support of every-day citizens to do good work in their communities. 

At Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF), Giving Tuesday is a day for everyone to make a difference for kids fighting cancer.  Your gift will fund researchers looking for safer treatments and cures, and provide travel expense coverage to families as they journey to potentially life-saving treatments. You can also support siblings with comfort and care as they experience childhood cancer on the sidelines. 

All Giving Tuesday donations to ALSF add up to momentous support for childhood cancer families. 

Here’s what your Giving Tuesday donation can do for kids with cancer:

1. Give More Days at School

Kids battling childhood cancer miss countless days of school because of doctor’s appointments, hospital stays, recovery from procedures, weakened immune systems and treatment side effects. Your support of childhood cancer research is making safer, effective treatments like immunotherapy possible for children. These types of cutting-edge treatments could someday replace toxic therapies and give kids what they want: a normal childhood. 

2. Give Access to Treatments 

Sometimes a potential childhood cancer treatment is not around the corner, but thousands of miles (and several flights) away. The cost of traveling for treatment can break a family’s already stressed-out budget. To help families cover travel expenses, ALSF has its Travel For Care program. This program funds flights, hotel stays and gas cards to qualifying families, allowing parents to focus on the treatment - not the expense. 

3. Give Siblings Comfort and Care

During childhood cancer treatment, siblings are on the sidelines watching their brother or sister fight cancer. As siblings walk through a scary and often uncertain future, they need comfort and support that is tailored to their specific needs. Through the SuperSibs program, siblings receive comfort, encouragement and access to other families in the same situation. 
 
4. Give Researchers More Access to Data

Did you know there is enough publicly available disease data at the National Institute of Health to fill up several hundred Libraries of Congress? Unfortunately, much of that information is often written in different ways – think of it as different languages – that make sense to one researcher but often times not to another.  The Childhood Cancer Data Lab is working to translate that data into one consistent format so that all researchers can use it to accelerate and power their research. The data can help scientists match genetic targets to drugs, which could become the next safer treatment for a child with cancer. 

5. Give Kids Cures

Less than 4% of the federal budget for cancer research goes toward childhood cancers. It is up to us to on Giving Tuesday to be part of the solution and fund innovative, breakthrough research that helps kids get cures. 

Ready to Help? You can get involved NOW by setting up a Giving Tuesday Facebook fundraiser in support of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. On Giving Tuesday, December 3, you can also make a direct donation to ALSF!