7-year-old girl helps to fund her own brain surgery

HOMEWOOD: Liza Scott, 7, started a lemonade stand at her mom’s bakery last summer so she could buy some frills like toys and sequined high-heel shoes. The bouncy little girl is still in business months later, yet the money is going toward something entirely different: surgery on her brain.

Last month, doctors determined a series of seizures that Liza began suffering were caused by cerebral malformations that needed repair, said her mother, Elizabeth Scott. Always eager to help out and with an eye toward entrepreneurship after a childhood spent around a small business, the little girl volunteered to help raise money for her upcoming operation.

Located near the cash register of Savage’s Bakery in suburban Birmingham, her stand of bright pink and yellow wooden crates offers lemonade for a quarter, plus other treats. But people are putting in a lot more as word spreads of her medical condition and her attitude. “I’ve got a $20 bill, and a $50 bill and a $10 bill and a $5 bill and a $100 bill,” Liza said Tuesday as she counted donations from the morning.

Liza was still in the hospital after suffering two major seizures when she came up with the idea to help out with the stand, said her mom, who also has a preschool-age boy.

“I told her, ‘You don’t have to do that,’” Elizabeth Scott said. “There’s no expectation of her doing anything to help pay the bills. I’m a single mom, I take care of my kids on my own.” Yet Liza wanted to help, and she has. Her little stand has made more than $12,000 in a few days — nearly all through donations.