This is an update from Natalie, one of our Elves, in her own words:
'We had the absolute pleasure of delivering a gift to Chloë yesterday. My son Joel (pictured) was the recipient of a gift in 2016 and this year we wanted to give back a little by volunteering as Elves. We were given 2 families to deliver to, Chloë being less than a mile from our house...easy delivery I thought!
I reached out to the families but then Chloë's dad called me to say unfortunately they are in Florida well into January and the delivery would sadly have to wait whilst Chloë receives treatment for Ewings Sarcoma.
Well...as it happens, thanks to another charity (The Kids Cancer Charity) who subsidise family trips to Florida we were also going to be there around the same time. We are in Kissimmee, Chloë and her family are in Jacksonville. Still a heck of a distance (approx 160 miles), but as it happens an anonymous benefactor, wanting to put smiles on kids faces, had gifted us a substantial amount of money towards our trip meaning, where I had previously been worried about keeping the purse strings tight, I could now say 'Let's do it! Let's deliver the gift'. One thing I do know about the benefactor is he lives in Manchester (approx 160 miles away from us, almost to the mile the distance between us and Chloë). It all seemed so beautifully serendipitous.
It was a long old drive but I'm so pleased that in the absence of being able to thank him in person, we could use this man's gift to help put another smile on someone's face and that through the kindness of Fatboys supporters we could deliver this gift to Chloë from Swindon over 4000 miles to Florida. I hope it gives her something fun to do on those long hospital days.
Thank you Fatboys, you are the best!"