Cardiff has joined the fundraising effort to help raise money for a little girl’s life-saving cancer treatment across the Atlantic.
Numerous shops along Cardiff’s high street including Greggs have put out buckets collecting for two-year-old Freya Bevan’s cause. Born in Neath, she was diagnosed with a Primitive Neuroectodermal Tumour on the brain in 2014 and had undergone numerous operations as well as on-going chemotherapy in the UK. But her parents, Katherine and John Paul who both work for the NHS, wanted Freya to travel to the US and undertake proton beam therapy because of the potential damage that chemotherapy can cause to a young person’s body.
Fundraising bucket in Greggs
They set up a Go Fund Me page and the donations poured in, raising £22,000 overnight and reaching £100,000 in no time at all. But the family were left devastated when the NHS refused the parents’ request to send their daughter to America, despite Katherine and John Paul offering to stump up £100,000 of the £130,000 needed.
At the time, Katherine had posted on the Go Fund Me page saying: “We offered and begged our NHS if they would accept £100,000 of all your hard-earned donations, if they would just help us with funding the rest of Freya’s treatment. We are desperate to get her the proton beam therapy she desperately needs, but they have turned us down! We are beyond heartbroken and tears are pouring down my face as I write this, we feel we have let our baby girl down, why won’t anybody help us give her a chance of life, she’s only 2 years old and deserves a chance, but the NHS have given up on her already!”
But since then children’s charity Kids ‘n’ Cancer have stepped in and Freya is currently in America receiving treatment by Dr Chang in Oklahoma.
In the last update on the Go Fund Me page posted yesterday, Katherine said: “Well what a week it’s been. Quite a good one for us as Freya has not been poorly since Sunday now and is starting to eat again, we are so happy with that. Everything is so different in America, and not many people in Oklahoma have even heard of Wales, they can’t understand me and Paul very well! Just want to say a massive thank you to everyone, the support we are still getting is phenomenal, all the fundraising going on is just incredible, we are so grateful.”
Dr Chang agreed to start the therapy without all the money having been raised yet but Freya will need the money in order for the treatment to be completed.
If you can’t find a bucket along Cardiff’s high street then donations can also be made online via http://www.gofundme.com/FreyaBevan_Fund
