Hello
This week the £1000 donations have gone to support a young Sheffield boy called Jude who was heartbreakingly diagnosed with an aggressive cancer just before he turned 3 years old. Our Charity Trustee Steve Manley met with Jude’s Uncle to hand over the £1000.
We wanted you, our incredible donators, to hear first hand from Jude’s Mum Lucy, about how Jude is and how your incredible donations will help:
“Jude was diagnosed with High Risk Neuroblastoma, an aggressive cancer, the day before his third birthday. Our lives were turned upside down and inside out. As a family with the help of our extended family, friends and complete strangers from Sheffield and across the world we have been tirelessly fundraising for over a year. We were originally fundraising for Jude to access a vaccine in New York which aimed to stop the cancer returning and had a set target to aim to and we reached it. As things changed and we found out the devastating news that Jude had relapsed in November, just days before we had planned to travel to New York. The extent of the disease was vast and we were told he could be treated to allow him time but not for a cure. Our options started to close down. Jude has responded so well to chemotherapy and radiotherapy but the NHS can’t offer anything else and so ultimately he is still “palliative”. However, his response has meant that there are options abroad. Where we had the set amount to aim for before, at the moment we have no set figure to aim for because there are so many variables and extras that may need to be factored in. We also don’t have time on our side as, if approved, Jude would need to travel pretty quickly as we couldn’t risk the cancer changing again. Every donation counts, every penny helps. A donation like the one from Sheffield 1000 helps us to be able to have a breather knowing that some money has gone into the pot that day. It is a glimmer of hope that Jude’s life might change from the 21 months of continuous cancer treatment, pain and hospitals that he has endured and we may be able to give him a life of a normal 4 year old. Any money that isn’t used by Jude to access treatment will be used by Solving Kids’ Cancer to help fund research into Neuroblastoma. We are extremely thankful for the donation.”
I think reading how much this money is needed to support Jude in his fight against this dreadful disease really hits home about how important your donations are and the support and impact the weekly £1000 donations can make.
Thank you all, and please continue to spread the word about The Sheffield 1000 so we can help as many smaller Charities as we can.
Best wishes for a great week
Dan and The Sheffield 1000 Team