Friday, 14 June 2019
A Nottingham mother whose daughter died from an aggressive brain tumour last year, has raised over £21,000 for the University of Nottingham’s Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre.
Victoria Lewis, from Beeston, lost four-year-old Sophie-Hélène Lewis in September 2018 after she was diagnosed with a Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), the fastest killing brain tumour in children aged 5-9, just four months earlier.
There are around 30 - 40 cases of this aggressive disease diagnosed every year in the UK, with an average life expectancy of around nine months.
Following Sophie-Hélène’s death, and with the help of an amazing group of friends, Victoria formed the Glitter Ball Committee, who held a fundraising event at the Nottingham Belfry Hotel on 27 April this year.
Following ticket sales of over 300 people and a high-profile raffle, the group raised over £21,000 for the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre at the University of Nottingham.
I wanted to raise money to try to prevent other families having to go through what we went through. At the moment the prognosis for DPIG is always terminal, and there has been so little progress since Neil Armstrong’s daughter died of the same disease aged at just 27 months in 1962. We want to coordinate our efforts to try to change such a devastating prognosis where young children are given a sudden and chilling median life-expectancy of just nine months post-diagnosis.
We had a huge amount of support from the local community and thanks to the sponsorship of a number of compassionate construction companies in the city, we were able to largely cover the on-costs of the ball and raise a lot of money for the BTRC from the ticket sales. There were also a lot of generous raffle donations from companies across the country, and for this we are really grateful.
The Children's Brain Tumour Research Centre in Nottingham is developing new and better methods of treating childhood brain-cancer and specifically striding to improve the prognosis of DIPG. Funding to improve the quality of life for any child or person diagnosed with a brain tumour and to look forward towards a positive prognosis and improved life chances is vital to its continued work.
Dawn Broomfield, Community Fundraising Manager for the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre said, “We are so grateful to Victoria and her committee for supporting us with ‘The Glitter Ball’. They have all worked so hard on this event and raised an incredible amount of money which will make such a big difference to the DIPG research taking place in Nottingham.”
Donations can still be made at www.the-glitter-ball.com
Story credits
More information is available from Charlotte Anscombe, Media Relations Manager for the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in the Press Office at The University of Nottingham, on +44 (0)115 74 84417, charlotte.anscombe@nottingham.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
About the University of Nottingham
Ranked 32 in Europe and 16th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings: Europe 2024, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.
Nottingham was crowned Sports University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 – the third time it has been given the honour since 2018 – and by the Daily Mail University Guide 2024.
The university is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The university is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the second most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2022 report by High Fliers Research.
We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city’s two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.
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