A LOCAL MP has paid tribute to hundreds of schoolchildren across her constituency on World Cancer Day, who raised more than £27,000 for a local five-year-old.
Sixty schools across Batley and Spen took part in ‘Rain-Beau Day’, with pupils, teachers and parents helping to raise money for Beau Hepworth.
Beau, five, was diagnosed in December 2020 with Stage 4 High Risk Neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive childhood cancer targeting the sympathetic nervous system when she was four-year-old.
It has a 50-50 chance of long-term survivorship and since her diagnosis she has undergone aggressive treatment to fight the disease, and her mother has been fundraising to enable her daughter to receive potentially life-saving treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York.
To help in that effort, the schools, including primary and secondary schools across the Spen Valley in East Bierley, Birkenshaw, Gomersal, Cleckheaton, Birstall, and Heckmondwike, held non-uniform days with pupils urged to dress in rainbow colours, which were a roaring success.
Their efforts have contributed £27,525 towards the £317,000 goal – with the current amount so far sitting at £197,658 – and won the praise of local MP Kim Leadbeater.
She said: “The way Beau’s appeal has captured the hearts of people across Batley and Spen and further afield has been amazing.
“It shows our community at its best and I want to say a huge thank to everybody who is doing so much to help get Beau the treatment she so desperately needs.”
Shirley Hepworth, who lives with daughter Beau in Roberttown, added: “Rain-Beau Day was more than just a non-uniform day, it was more than just the astronomical amount of funds raised, this was a community of people coming together to create something so powerful I can imagine people from far and wide will look on in awe.
“Thank you to everybody who made the effort to come together on ‘Rain-Beau Day’. I am so proud to be part of this community and I am and will forever remain humbled by you all.
"This last year has been so difficult for my family but in my hour of need on Christmas Eve 2021 I reached out to my community and my goodness were they there! I've never felt so overwhelmed as I have in the last four weeks.”
Anyone who wishes to support the campaign to enable Beau to receive her treatment in the USA can visit getbeautosloan.com
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