[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Local communities can come together in amazing ways when it comes to things like this. There's a young girl around where I live who had a rare type of leukemia and had exhausted all NHS avenues, but there was a treatment available in Germany at the cost of £300,000 that apparently has an 80% success rate. The entire county really pulled together, the money was raised, she got the treatment and it was successful. It was everywhere - wristbands being sold absolutely everywhere, people donating all sorts of services for free for people to buy at auction (salon treatments, their holiday home for a week, things like that). I think there was even a temporary charity shop set up in an empty store that the council gave access to for free.

I feel pretty certain that if the family gets their story out locally and gets people engaged with it, they should be able to raise £7000 in no time. It's not a huge amount of money, but that doesn't really matter if you don't have it... it's horrible to think about happening to your child and being so powerless. I could get together £7000 relatively quickly these days, but even just 3/4 years ago there were times when I was raiding the 5p jar for a bus fare to work and a bill coming through for £70 gave me cold sweats, let alone £7000. I think when you're not in that position, it can be all too easy to forget that a few thousand is insurmountable in some circumstances... maybe that's why it's not getting the attention? People feel like it shouldn't be an issue. Ironically, they would probably have more people jumping on board to help if it WAS for more money.

Local communities are great for things like this. Last summer our area raised about 10k for a disabled kids mobility chair.