Former Costa Mesa family honored for work fighting childhood cancer

A former Costa Mesa family is being honored this weekend for efforts in benefiting a foundation that fights childhood cancer.

The Taggart family, who lived in Costa Mesa until about 2008 and now live in Newbury Park, will receive the Stand Hosts of the Year award from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation during a gala Saturday in Philadelphia. Since 2005, the family has raised $80,000 toward the Pennsylvania-based foundation.

The Taggarts hold their annual lemonade stand fund-raiser at the Irvine Spectrum Center in honor of their young son, John Kelly Taggart, who died in 2005 of neuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer that affects nerve cells. Before John’s death, he had the idea to start the stand after hearing about how Alexandra “Alex” Scott, which Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation is named after, lost her life to neuroblastoma.

—Bradley Zint

Twitter: @bradleyzint