A nine-year old girl made a rather special donation at a coffee morning that was held recently in Skibbereen in memory of a young family friend who died from brain cancer at the age of three.
BY JACKIE KEOGH
A NINE-year old girl made a rather special donation at a coffee morning that was held recently in Skibbereen in memory of a young family friend who died from brain cancer at the age of three.
Donna Mariam Jiji cut her hair and donated it to the Rapunzel Ponytail Foundation, which uses it to make wigs for children who suffer hair loss due to cancer treatment or alopecia.
Meanwhile, the €510 donated by the adults during the fundraising coffee morning is to be handed over to the Paediatric Oncology Outreach Nursing Service this week.
Donna showed no sign of nerves, just excitement, at the coffee morning on August 14th – the day that young Eva Aniulytes would have celebrated her seventh birthday.
Eva passed away on August 5th 2016, and to honour her memory, her mother Luiza decided she would host a coffee morning.
‘It was a good day – so good that we are planning on making it an annual event,’ said Luzia, who acknowledged: ‘It’s a good way, too, of celebrating Eva’s memory.’
Luiza described just how ‘amazing’ the Paediatric Oncology Outreach Nursing Service was during the nine months of Eva’s care.
Once a week, a nurse would come to their house to clear Eva’s ‘Hickman Line’ and the tenderness they showed not only removed the burden of travelling to hospital once a week, it normalised her care during what was a very distressing, frightening and uncertain time.
The Paediatric Oncology Outreach Nursing Service covers a huge geographical area so that children can avail of the service regardless of location.
It is for this reason, and the nurses’ genuine approach to their work, that Luzia and her family have decided to make this an annual event.
