Caroline Smith
Charlotte's challenge
Fundraising for The PACE Centre
Story
Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page.
Update: Charlotte has now completed her challenge & collected her medal!
It is a great pleasure to let you all know that Charlotte succesfully completed her challenge and was presented with her medal on 5th November at Stoke Mandeville Stadium by Tony Gibb Olympic and Commonwealth cyclist. She enjoyed the huge round of applause and we are all very proud of her. The day was a great success with so many children with physical disabilities completing their 'Mount Everest' challenges. The children and the staff are an inspiration to us all.
Thank you so much for all your support.
Caroline, Richard, Amelia & Charlotte
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Our daughter - Charlotte
As many of you know, our daughter Charlotte was born 8 weeks premature, along with her sister Amelia, in August 2007. Charlotte was the recipient of twin to twin tranfusion and suffered brain damage. She was in and out of hospital in her first few months and then had daily seizures and suspected encephalitis (brain inflamation) when she was 5 months old.
Charlotte has neurological problems, global developmental delay, hypermobility, hypotonia and the motor disability cerebal palsy (the physical disability affecting movement as a result of damage to the brain). She continues to require many trips to hospital and a daily regime of physiotherapy. If you’ve met Charlotte you’ll know that she’s a very happy and loving little girl, but she struggles with acquiring some of the basic skills we all take for granted.
What is so special about the PACE centre that Charlotte attends?
Along with support from our family, our nanny and the NHS, Charlotte receives support once a week from an amazing centre for disabled children, called the PACE centre (http://thepacecentre.org). PACE is a charity based in Buckinghamshire that gives developmental assistance to physically disabled children who find learning everyday skills difficult. PACE believe in each child's abilty to learn despite their disability and provide an inpsirational environment, motivating children with physical disabilties to work hard at achieving goals. Help includes physical, social, communication, academic and self-care skills. The centre helps the children learn to say "I can try, I CAN do it". The children at PACE develop a positive attitude because they are learning in an environment where everyone believes in their abilities and has high expectations of them.
What is Charlottes challenge?
To raise funds for the wonderful work that PACE do, Charlotte has been tasked with a challenge to walk 20 steps independently through a narrow channel, and step up and over 5 box steps along the way and her target date is a special “Children’s Challenge” day at Stoke Mandeville Stadium the week of 5th November.
We would really appreciate your support to raise money for PACE and enable the charity to continue the good work. At the last Children's Challenge time in 2007 an incredible £70,000 was raised by 40 families. This money paid for the cost of early year's provision for the whole of 2008. The 2009 events will be aiming high...to pay for the cost of helping their biggest number of children and families through outreach and follow up.Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - We raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
So please dig deep and donate now.