Important Notice: we reached our goal thanks to your generosity. Besides raising $150 online, we raised $605 at the Stand at the Carnival. Thank you to everyone who donated. Please continue to consider donating further to our online site for the memory of Perri and Alex Scott who started it all. We can send a man to the moon but we have not found a cure for childhood cancer. Let us find the cure! 

Dear Parents/Guardians:

We are writing to you as fellow Cynwyd parents.  We want you to know a startling fact and what we can do about it.  Every year more than 200,000 children worldwide are diagnosed with a form of childhood cancer. 

Our daughter, Perri Miller, was a victim of leukemia.  Perri attended Cynwyd’s first grade until her leukemia relapsed in May 2009.  We lost Perri when she died of complications of a bone marrow transplant.  Perri was a bright, athletic student who loved Cynwyd, especially the good friends she made there. 

In Perri’s memory, our family and the School will be hosting an Alex’s Lemonade Stand during the School Carnival on June 1^st. At the Lemonade Stand, we will be pouring cold cups of lemonade in return for small donations to the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.  The Fourth Grade Class has volunteered to help with the Stand – a wonderful act of kindness for which we are so grateful.

In addition to making a donation at the Stand, we are asking you to make a donation on this page.  Please click on the DONATE NOW spot to begin the process of making a donation.  No donation is too small (or too big)!  Remember that our goal is to raise $500.  Let's meet and even break that goal. Thank you very much.

You can also make a $10 contribution by texting Lemonade E82179 to the number 85944.

Our goal is to raise $500 in donations for the cause.

The mission of the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit charity) is to raise funds to research new treatments and cures.  The Foundation also tries to encourage and empower others, especially children, such as Cynwyd’s students, to get involved in making a difference for children with cancer.

Thank you for your support!

MORE ABOUT PERRI.

We would like to share with you some of our fondest memories of Perri's joyful life.

She would play with a small guitar that we had bought her – with plans that she would take lessons.  Joking around with the guitar she would dance and sing.  I still remember one evening when she sat down on the couch flanked on either side by her cousin from Israel and her sister, Morgan.  They had a great time making up songs and laughing.

Perri loved going with us to Franklin Park in downtown Philadelphia.  There she would ride the Merry-Go-Round, not stopping until she had taken three or four rides.  Then we would head over to the miniature golf course.  Perri loved the second hole because when you stepped up to it rock and roll music by the Philadelphia Sound artists would start to play.  Hearing “Ain’t No Stopping us Now” or “Love Train” Perri of course would drop her club and start to dance.  If there was no one behind us she would get the music to play three or four times and miniature golf was forgotten for a while.  By the way Perri was a great golfer – she scored more holes in one than I ever did.

In general she was a very talented and fearless athlete.  The first time that I took her to the Belmont Hills pool near our house she ran right for the water slide and before I could catch her she had cut in front of the line and climbed up the stairs.   But she could not swim.  So I jumped into the pool to bring her up when she came out.  And she came out laughing – not scarred one bit.  In fact, she wanted to go back for a second time, but I had to stop her because the life guards were not going to let me keeping jumping in the water to save her when she came down.

We did get to go down another waterslide when we went to Disney World on a trip sponsored by the Make a Wish Foundation.  At Disney World Perri proved that she was fearless again.  Aside from the waterslide, we went on the Frontier land rollercoaster about five times.

One day we took a break from Disney World and went to Universal Studios.  There Perri got to have her picture taken with Shrek and Fiona – her two favorite movie characters from the time the first Shrek movie came out.  We also went to an outdoor performance by two singer/actors dressed up like the Blues Brothers.  Perri went right in front of the crowd and of course began dancing to the music.  To watch her have fun, was the best thing in our lives.

Perri as I mentioned before was a talented athelete.  She loved climbing trees, especially one tree at the General Wayne Park, that sadly has been cut down to make way for a patch of concrete.  She also loved climbing up onto the wall that runs along one side of the Cynwyd field.  She would walk the entire top of the wall with me following behind her and holding my breath.  But she was fearless when it came to heights. 

Perri loved the beach.  We went down to Loveladies, NJ for a vacation only a few weeks before she was diagnosed with leukemia.  She ran up and down the beach chased by our dog Dogo.  Then she would get up and chase Dogo down the beach.  Every few minutes she would fling herself down on the sand and hold up her head with her hands.  I still remember that day like it was yesterday.

Perri loved everything about pirates.  We visited the ships moored at Penn’s Landing along the Delaware River many weekends when we lived in Society Hill.  We visited the Mosholu, the USS Becuna (a submarine) and the USS Olympia – the famous battle cruiser from the Spanish American war.  But for her all of these ships were “pirate ships.”

I read to her many nights wonderfully illustrated books entitled How I Became A Pirate and Pirates Don’t Change Diapers.  At the end of How I became A pirate, the boy’s adventure with the pirates is finished.  He thinks about how they might come back again one day, but then on the last page he says, “but not today, I have soccer practice.”  Perri had that last page memorized.

At home we played pirates in the basement.  We had two pirate swords made out of fabric.  Either Perri or I would say “en garde” and we would start sword fighting.  Perri would drop her sword, pretending that I had knocked it out of her hand and then I would chase her around the basement and catch her.  Then it was my role to stick her with the sword between her arms and she would fall to the ground as if mortally wounded.  Then we would start sword fighting again and now it was my turn to have the sword knocked from my hand and then be chased by Perri around the room.  Perri thought of this game by herself and I could not have improved upon it.

On Saturday’s I took Perri to swimming classes.  She learned from an instructor who had experience with children with intellectual disabilities.  The instructor was amazed by the progress that Perri made in learning to float and kick while holding a bar bell shaped floatation device. 

Perri was supposed to continue swimming lessons at Friends Central Day Camp.  We had everything prepared for her.  We hired an aide for her.  I remember filling out her daily schedules and making sure to put down down dancing and computers for the times that she could choose her own activities. But then Perri suffered her relapse and the Day camp was called off.

Perri loved computers.  In the summer before her relapse I bought her her own desktop computer so she would stop using mine so much.  She eventually put together quite a collection of games.  Of course her favorite was Shrek the Third.  We struggled through the difficult parts of the game together and sometimes she surmounted the obstacle to get to the next level and sometimes I did.  But there was no need to help Perri in most places.  She was a computer game expert.

On Sunday’s Perri went to Ballet practice.  She was not ready for a typical class yet so she had one on one instruction with the Ballet teacher, Ms. Tatania.  Perri wore a pink leotard and learned to stretch with the teacher on the floor.  But what she like best was to run and skip around the room with Ms. Tatania to the sounds of her favorite music:  Smash Mouth, and the soundtracks from the Shrek movies and Lilo and Stitch.  Later Ms Tatania introduced scarves a hulahoop and other fun props.  At the end of the class Perri was unfailingly polite – helping Ms Tatania put away all of the props in their closet.

Perri was a gourmet when it came to food.  Her favorite meal was a French baguette, grilled lamb chops, and a salad topped with Balsamic Vinagrette.  She could make the balsamic vinaigrette herself.  She would climb up on the counter at our house in town.  Take down all the ingredients and start to work.  She knew how much oil and how much vinegar to mix in.  Then she would add salt and pepper.  She loved tomatoes and always asked to have plenty of tomatoes put in her salad.  When the lettuce and tomatoes were finished she would drink the balsamic vinaigrette remaining in the bowl – but always in the most lady like way.

Most of all Perri loved friends.  She made many, many friends at the Cynwyd Elementary School where she attended First grade.  At the start of each day she would board the bus and say hello to Ms Patty the driver.  Her “boy friend” (a little boy she had befriended) would save her seat for her in the front row.  Once she left the bus she would go through the school office on her way to class.  She always stopped by to see the principal and her secretary.  Going to class with her aide, Ms Kamin, she would say hello to everyone she met in the hallways.  Ms. Kamin told us that she was amazed at how many names Perri knew. 

After Perri died Ms Kamin said: "I think about Perri all the time – running down the hall with glee. I never let anyone run in the hall except her.  It just made her too darn happy." 

I could go on and on with great memories of Perri but we use up all of the memory on this website.

THANK YOU SO MUCH:  THE MILLER FAMILY: ANDREW AND FABIOLA – PERRI’S PARENTS, AND DAVID AND MORGAN (CYNWYD KINDERGARTEN) – PERRI’S BROTHER AND SISTER