Other parents go shopping for shoes for their young children. Christopher and Sarah Hope do, too – but they also have to buy new legs for their six-year-old daughter Pollyanna. 

 

Pollyanna was born with two legs but lost her right leg on an ordinary London street on April 25th, 2007, when a Metroline bus accelerated dangerously into their local bus station in Mortlake, south-west London. Sarah, her mother Elizabeth, and Pollyanna, then aged just two, were walking along the pavement.

 

The bus smashed into the three of them, throwing Elizabeth against the wall, killing her instantly. Sarah was trapped by the bus, squeezed under her mother’s body, leaving her leg badly disfigured. Pollyanna was thrown 15 feet away, landing upside down on a motorway-type steel barrier which was protecting the wall. The impact on Pollyanna was to sever her right leg, just below the knee.

 

Life for the Hope family changed completely. They had to move away to rebuild their lives. There is a new routine now: every four months they have to go and get a new leg for Pollyanna as she grows up.

 

When it is on, you would not be able to tell that she only has one leg. Her prosthetic limb is expertly crafted in a synthetic silicone skin, with lifelike toes, and little creases on the heel. But when it is off, she has to hop around.

 

What worries the Hopes is that there are thousands of children like this in the developing world who also need a leg to walk on. That's why earlier this year Sarah and her sister Victoria set up “Elizabeth's Legacy of Hope” (registered charity 1141287) to help children like Pollyanna hop, skip and jump their way through childhood. To give them a leg up, if you like.  Sarah and Victoria naturally named the charity after their mother who they still miss everyday.

 

Elizabeth’s Legacy of Hope wants to give these children a brighter and more active future, by providing low cost prosthetics and funding for further research into artificial legs. The actress Joanna Lumley, Sarah and Victoria’s cousin, is a patron.

 

Around £30 raises enough to pay for a special prosthetic limb called a Jaipur Foot, to help children like Pollyanna to walk again.  They also would like to develop ballet limb so Pollyanna can point her toes in ballet just like her friends. She loves to dance.

 

That's where Barnaby comes in. In October, Barnaby, Pollyanna's 11 year old brother, and nine of his friends will become the first official fund raisers for Elizabeth's Legacy of Hope by running the Pulse 3k, alongside the Royal Parks Half Marathon in Hyde Park.

 

This is the hope – that Elizabeth's Legacy of Hope can get children to raise money for children. The Hopes are so grateful to his nine friends - Dominic, Ethan, Max, Max, Max, Joshua, Joseph, Theo and Herbie!

 

If you can, and are able, please sponsor Barnaby and his friends on this JustGiving page. Barnaby has been amazing over the past four and half difficult years moving house, and new schools, three times.  He is so excited about doing this run and helping children who are less fortunate than Pollyanna.

 

If you want to know more about Elizabeth's Legacy of Hope please click on www.elizabethslegacyofhope.org.

 

Thank you so much!