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Community Champions: March

Our Kidscan Community Fundraising Champions update for March comes from Alison England, our Community Fundraising Manager.

The staff and pupils at St Thomas the Martyr C.E Primary school in Up Holland, Lancs held their very own Dance-a-Thon on 2nd February. They not only wanted to raise awareness for World Cancer day, but to also celebrate that news that their fellow pupil Theo, was cancer free!

Theo is a Kidscan Ambassador and has recently gone through a bone marrow transplant, he’s now at home recovering with his family. The school wanted to show Theo their support and raise money for Kidscan!

The children in school and at home all dressed up for the day and put on their dancing shoes!! Some of the children created posters and decorated their homes and all danced their socks off!
We are so grateful to Miss Deary and the whole school for supporting Theo and Kidscan and we are over the moon by their incredible fundraising which brought in £874.50 – THANK YOU VERY MUCH!


A big thank you also, to Mike Gannon who created and produced a beautiful Christmas CD filled with traditional Christmas hymns and readings. Proceeds from the sale were donated to Kidscan and we were delighted to receive a cheque for £160. I’m sure all those who bought this CD will have enjoyed listening to such wonderful music. Thank you, Mike, for all your hard work putting this CD together and to everyone who purchased one at Christmas!


Plus, we are delighted to share the news that our incredible supporter, Jill Reeves, has been nominated for a ‘Volunteer of the Year’ from CVS Salford, for the amazing work she has done for Kidscan! Jill’s daughter Isla is one of our patient ambassadors and between them they have raised over £8000 for our charity.

Isla’s journey began in March 2019, when she started to feel unwell. She had a temperature, felt sick and a tummy ache. The GP said she had a urine infection however, nearly 4 weeks later, the symptoms remained plus Isla had started to lose weight. It took several trips back to the GP and three visits to the hospital before her parents, Jill and Kenneth were told Isla had cancer. An MRI scan and biopsy confirmed she had Wilms Tumour, a type of kidney cancer. The family were devastated. Isla was a keen dancer; a very active and healthy child. This was news that no parent ever wants to hear.
isla-story-Kidscan-Childrens-Cancer-Research
Within weeks of her diagnosis, Isla began treatment with two chemotherapy drugs administered every week, for four weeks. The chemo made her very poorly and they spent most of those four weeks in the hospital. Within eleven days she had lost all her beautiful, long blonde hair and in mid-May she underwent a massive operation to remove the tumour, a kidney and appendix. Two weeks later she was given the positive news that the cancer was still at stage 1 and had all been removed. The treatment protocol was to continue with another four weeks of chemotherapy, which again made Isla very poorly.
But on the 17th June 2019, 2 days before her 6th birthday Isla (quite proudly) rang the end of treatment bell. Whilst Isla is now doing extremely well, she does still suffer with the side effects of the treatment.


Isla’s mum contacted Kidscan after one night sitting in the parent’s room of the hospital ward where Isla was. On the wall she saw lots of information about support group for families like her, but she was surprised to see nothing that related to stopping this disease in the first place. All these charities offer fantastic services and amazing experiences for the children and their families, but Jill really wanted to support a charity that is tackling the issue before it gets to that point. She contacted us at Kidscan and we explained that sadly, there are very few charities that provide funding for children’s cancer research. Jill was shocked and annoyed that there was more support for adult treatment but not a lot for children.
At Kidscan we fund research projects into finding new and improved treatments for children so Jill, Isla and her family threw themselves into raising money for Kidscan – and they certainly did just that!

Just 3 short months after Isla finished her treatment and rang the bell, she walked barefoot across Lego – yes BAREFOOT!
She didn’t just do it once, she did it several times and also roped in her parents, brothers, aunties, uncles, friends and even her grandad!
Isla didn’t stop there! She held quiz nights, football matches, fashion shows and Christmas collections and just recently she raised £2175 by joining in the national 2.6 challenge when she ran around her local park for 26 minutes. On each lap she
changed into a different Disney princess costume!

When corona virus hit the UK, Isla’s parents were incredibly concerned as Isla, and other cancer patients or survivors, can be at greater risk from the disease. During lockdown Isla had to self-isolate and at first wasn’t even allowed in her own garden due to her having low immune system caused by the chemotherapy. As lockdown eased, Isla was able to venture out more but again missing her friends and school. But even through the pandemic Jill still spread the word about Kidscan and supported us when she could. She has big plans for when lives return to normal!

The whole team are proud to have Jill as part of the Kidscan Family. She is not afraid to get involved and have a go at pretty much anything!
Jill and her family have been incredible and have turned such a terrible time into a positive situation and we are truly grateful to them. And it really is wonderful that she has been recognised by CVS Salford – thanks for everything Jill – well done!

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