In September 2017 Amy was diagnosed with a brain tumour. As a consequence of her illness Amy struggled with her mobility, vision and speech. Earlier this year the RGF awarded Amy a grant for some Art Therapy sessions. Amy loved art and these sessions helped her, and her family, cope with her illness. Amy shared some of her work with us (see pictures) and was particularly proud of her driftwood mirrors and sunflower table. We featured Amy’s story in our 2017/18 Annual Review. Literally as we were writing Amy’s moving story we received the devastating and heart-breaking news that Amy had lost her brave fight, but Pam and her family insisted that we went ahead and shared her story.
Amy’s family’s appreciation of the RGF is such that they recently organised a fundraising event to raise funds for the RGF (how amazing is that?). Rather poignantly Pam and Amy’s grandmother, together with Eirlys (Amy’s CLIC Sargent’s social worker) met and shared some memories and made some shell and driftwood mirrors with a view to selling them to raise the funds. Then in the last week Pam hosted a RGF charity fundraising evening at her home and with the sales of the mirrors and a raffle they raised £300 – simply amazing!
Pam said: “the owner of a local gift shop brought a selection of her gifts to my house for a shopping party and I invited friends and family to a shopping evening in my home. It was a lovely evening full of fun and it also made me decorate the house for Christmas.”
A few words from Eirlys who also wanted to contribute to this post: “I work as a CLIC Sargent social worker for South West Wales and the support given to my young people by the RGF is invaluable. I work with young people aged 16-24 with a Cancer diagnosis. It can be a struggle to source funding and support for young adults this age but the RGF are able to do this. They have supported so many of the young people I work with including funding for Amy to do art therapy work, help with financial struggles and buying bikes to get young people fit again after chemotherapy treatment. I feel as if the RGF are as passionate about supporting young people as we are at CLIC Sargent and I feel as if I know them personally whenever we communicate. I feel as if we are a team and the outcome of that is more support for our amazing young people. Thank you RGF. Don’t ever stop!”
Amy and her mum, Pam, inspire us all at the RGF. They epitomise what the RGF is all about. We have been so humbled to hear how our support helped Amy and her family. We were also touched to know that Amy’s story with the RGF was read out at her funeral. To then find the strength to organise this event takes our admiration of Pam and her family to another level!
Thank you Pam – Amy really is the RGF’s very own beautiful sunflower!
