Top Chefs Fight Cancer in Philly

If you're an East Coast foodie, the place to be this week is Philadelphia, where on Wednesday a slew of America's top chefs — including Bobby Flay, Tom Colicchio and Masaharu Morimoto — will be on Broad Street for a giant street fair with a noble cause: to help children's cancer charities. The event is the brainchild of the folks at Alex's Lemonade, a Pennsylvania nonprofit that's raised over $25 million for cancer research since its inception in 2000.

The founder of Alex's wasn't a stodgy philanthropic businessman ... it was 4-year-old Alexandra Scott, a cancer patient, who started raising money for a cure by setting up a lemonade stand. Sadly, Alexandra (aka Alex) died in 2004, but she had already raised a million dollars for cancer research by the time of her death.

Even if you can't make the Great Chefs event, there are plenty of ways to help Alex's mission, from setting up your own charity lemonade stand to attending the Symposium of Childhood Cancer the Alex folks are holding in Philadelphia later this month. Of course, you can also just make a straightforward donation. Even if you only contribute the price of a couple Dixie cups of lemonade, every little bit will help find a cure to this terrible disease.