It was a bit of a surprise when Grace got in touch to say that as part of her 21st birthday celebrations she had nominated Kids Like Us as her chosen charity for Selby and District Young Farmers to raise funds for.
When Grace was diagnosed there were no Paediatric Rheumalogy services in Yorkshire so she was referred to our very own Professor Southwood at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. As all us parents know we are frequently at hospital appointments but imagine having to factor in the trip down from Yorkshire too!
It’s fantastic that Grace has remembered her great treatment in Birmingham and chosen to acknowledge this by fundraising for us.
The Young Farmers held their Big Bash on 16th June and from the videos we saw they looked like they had a wonderful evening.
We weren’t the only charity to benefit from the evening but our portion of the total was an amazing £1500.00.
We were invited up to Selby to give a talk on KLU and JIA and collect the cheque at a presentation on 22nd November.
Despite the distance Marion and I set off to give our very first talk, but not before popping over to Irene’s for some mentoring and encouragement!
We were met by a lovely group of Young Farmers who very patiently sat through our chat and we had quite a lively question and answer session afterwards.
The only person in the room on the night (apart from us) who knew anything about JIA was Grace so we’ve spread the word to a fair few more people that children get arthritis too.
Sadly Grace has never met another child or young adult with JIA and therefore has not had the opportunity our young warriors are now getting where they can meet and socialise with people facing the same battles. We are putting Grace in touch with our committee member, Gemma so that they have the chance to compare stories and hopefully at some point Grace will pop down to Birmingham to see what we are up to and where the funds have been spent.
