The father of a little boy who needs £250k for an American cancer drug has thanked donors as they break the £80k barrier. Four-year-old Calum Rae has high-risk neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that is uncommon but aggressive and has a five-year survival rate of roughly 50 per cent.
His father, Andrew Rae, and his mother, Victoria McDonald, who tragically lost her own mother to cancer when she was a child, are trying to get the £250,000 to send him to America for a drug trial that may lengthen his life.
The parents spoke to the Sunday Mail last week and have since raised a further £17,721. Andrew said: “It has been amazing. We are just over £82,000, which is insane when you set a target that seems impossible at the start. To reach that figure in such a short period of time has blown us away.
“Our local community has really banded together. A food vendor in Troon called Scran is donating to us a percentage of their profits from some food and drinks named after Calum.
“Calum’s cousin raised over £900 at MacTuff, the kid’s Tough Mudder. We have RaceNights coming up. One particular girl in Ayrshire, who we have never met, has been obtaining items for raffles in line with the National Lottery. She has been amazing and has raised well into the thousands.
“People from across the community that we don’t know or haven’t heard of are all chipping in and donating. He doesn’t understand to the full extent what’s happening. He asks, ‘Why do I need to keep medicine’.
“We have shown him the papers, and he thought the piece in the Sunday Mail was fantastic. At four years old, he takes it all in his stride, but he doesn’t understand the whole magnitude of it all.
“Everyone is just so infested and it is something that I never thought would happen. I thought we would have to do a lot of it ourselves, which is hard when we have to be there for Calum and our young baby. We are eternally grateful.”
Despite the massive amount of momentum behind the campaign, the four-year-old’s dad is forever concerned that it will come to a hault.
He added: “It is a big amount to raise, and I am always waiting for a lull coming, which might be the pessimist in me. We are constantly posting online to keep the momentum up.
“As time goes on, we are constantly getting big donations. We were celebrating reaching £30,000, then all of a sudden it’s £80,000. Every time we get to a figure, you think it’s going to stop, but it just keeps going.”
You can donate to the family by clicking here.
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