Sophie's Journey provides short seaside holidays in Lincolnshire, so children and their families can have a break in the middle of treatments. And more importantly, so that children can feel like children again. 

The charity was initially set up as a Facebook page shortly after my niece Sophie, underwent brain surgery to remove a cancerous tumour. She wanted to see and understand what to expect when she started her treatments, and couldn't find anything on the Internet that really answered her questions. So she and her mum Stacy, set up a page to catalogue her experiences in both words and photographs. The idea was to help other children, and their parents, by giving them somewhere they could see the experience, through the eyes of a child. 

For the last two years of her life she battled cancer with her inspiring mix of courage, humour, lack of complaint and can-do-attitude. She also had such an irrepressible sense of fun and cheekiness and a beautiful, big heart; you couldn't help but love her and in her too short life, she touched so many hearts in so many ways.

These are two of my favourite pictures of Sophie and I took them last year when we were waiting in hospital for one of her numerous physiotherapy sessions to start; she was undoubtedly teasing me about something! At this point, she’d already undergone surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy and yet the first thing you noticed whenever you saw her, was her smile. It lit up her face, made her blue eyes sparkle and always made you want to smile back. 

So in memory of Sophie, her wonderful smile, her amazing spirit and inspiration, please join my in supporting Sophie’s Journey and sponsoring my Skydive.

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. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.