The Mirror Newspapers Reflecting Life Along The Maumee River
Wearing a red T-shirt festooned with lemons, Mike Morgan looked at the crowd gathered on the putting green and urged them to give generously.
“By the time we’re done here today, we’ll raise $30,000,” said Morgan, a financial advisor for Northwestern Mutual of Toledo.
As part of the Northwestern Mutual Cleveland network, which includes Toledo, Akron, Canton and Findlay locations, Team Morgan has organized a golf outing in support of the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation since 2017. On August 27, Team Morgan held its fifth annual golf outing to benefit the ALSF.
A nonprofit organization that raises funds for childhood cancer research, the ALSF is named after Alexandra “Alex” Scott, who was born in 1996 and diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer, just before her first birthday.
When she was 4, Alex held her first childhood cancer fundraiser – a lemonade stand in her front yard – and raised over $2,000. By the time of her death in 2004, Alex had raised $1 million and inspired a legacy of hope and cures for childhood cancer. Since then, $150 million has been raised by supporters nationwide who host lemonade stands in her name.
“Alex’s is an amazing charity,” said John Ertz, managing partner for Northwestern Mutual Cleveland, who got involved after his managing partner and his wife lost an 8-year-old child to cancer. “We need to carry on and find a cure to this horrible disease of childhood cancer.”
Team Morgan has raised $61,000 in the past four years, which is why the Northwestern Mutual Cleveland office was recognized with the Northwestern Mutual Foundation’s Childhood Cancer Impact Award this year. As part of the award, a $25,000 donation was presented to the ProMedica Cancer Institute for the Russell J. Ebeid Children’s Hospital.
The funds will have a huge impact in helping the littlest of patients, said Paula Grieb, chief nursing officer for the hospital.
