A Bring out your Bling day on Friday will raise funds for a new centre which will give 1,200 disabled children in South Gwent a better life
ELEVEN-year-old Sophie Hennah has a special reason to celebrate all things shiny this week.
A Bring out your Bling day on Friday will raise funds for a new centre which will give her and 1,200 other disabled children in South Gwent a better life.
Sparkle Appeal is fundraising for its planned world-class health centre in High Cross with the Sparkle 4 Sparkle day.
Organisers are asking businesses to hold a Sparkle for Sparkle day, where employees donate a pound to wear their most glittering outfits. Tinsel, diamante, sparkly tops and bling are all obligatory.
The appeal, launched in 2003, aims to raise £3 million to equip the planned centre, which will be a one-stop-shop for children with disabilities and their families in the Newport, Torfaen and Monmouth areas. So far £250,000 has been raised.
They have also applied to the Assembly for grant funding to pay for the £6million building, which would have a state-of-the-art centre for disabled children, including clinics, therapy suites, hydrotherapy pools, play areas and a medi-cinema with full disabled facilities.
Sophie, of Lliswerry Park Drive, Alway, is quadraplegic and suffers from cerebal palsy, epilepsy, blindness, curvature of the spine and recurrent chest infections.
Her father, Ian Hennah, said: "The planned centre will make my life 1,000 times better."
He says travelling between numerous clinics in different places is exhausting and expensive and says planning family outings is like "a military operation".
Helen Lloyd, fundraising manager for Sparkle, hopes the day will raise several hundred pounds.
To get involved call 01633 656212/234176 or email Enquiries@sparkleappeal.org|
First published on the South Wales Argus website|