This post was written by Marisa, Addie’s mom

As I was talking to a friend of mine last night I realized I haven’t done a very good job of explaining “why” Addie hosts a lemonade/cupcake stand every year. Well here are a few of our “why’s”….

In October 2013 Addie (and our family) received a Dream Come True from Sunshine Foundation! Addie’s dream was to go to Orlando to meet the Disney Princesses. Even before we left Addie already knew what an amazing journey this was turning out to be for us! We had made new friends and the excitement of our upcoming vacation made a real impact on all of us! It helped her through some doctors appointments and a pretty big surgery that year. The summer before we left Addie said “I want ALL of the kids dreams to come true!” So we put our heads together and came up with a lemonade stand/bake sale. It was a small stand that we held on our street corner.

The news came out and did a beautiful story on Addie and her stand! Luckily for us one of our local radio station DJ’s saw it and was touched by Addie and her generosity. The next morning BIG 98.7 (it happened to be their first day on air) shared Addie’s story again and asked for help finding us because they wanted to help her do another BIG lemonade stand!! So a few days later we were at it again servicing lemonade and cupcakes wit hour new friends Jesse, Amanda and Pike. They broadcast live from the whole thing and surprised Addie with a visit from Ms. Moorhead!! We are forever grateful to BIG 98.7 because they were the ones that really inspired us to “GO BIG” and to continue the lemonade stands each year.

Each year the lemonade stands have become bigger – full of more lemonade, cupcakes, love and princesses! We are continually inspired by our friends and community who come out every year to support Addie and Sunshine Foundation! We are also inspired by the sweet little faces like Rhyan and Jayde (and this year Tyler!) who get to enjoy a week of vacation with no medical worries: a week to just be a kid and have fun!!

So thank you all so much for your support of Addie’s stand and Sunshine Foundation! I hope you realize what your support means to the kids and their families!

[ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”131″ sortorder=”6386,6389,6392,6387,6390,6388,6391″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_thumbnails” override_thumbnail_settings=”0″ thumbnail_width=”120″ thumbnail_height=”90″ thumbnail_crop=”1″ images_per_page=”20″ number_of_columns=”0″ ajax_pagination=”0″ show_all_in_lightbox=”0″ use_imagebrowser_effect=”0″ show_slideshow_link=”1″ slideshow_link_text=”[Show slideshow]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]