Just4Children are fundraising to help Jacob undergo stem cell therapy in Denver, Colorado to enhance his motor functions and brain development.

We're Dominique and Dawn, two busy working Mum's that feel so passionately about raising money for our cause that we've decided to make our next two weeks a little bit more busy... We're going to swim The English Channel! Thankfully for us, not in the ice cold, choppy waters but at our local lesuire center, Brio Northwich!

We aim to start our swim on Monday 17th March and complete by Sunday 30th March. Within this time we would have swam a total of 34KM (21 miles) which works out as a whopping 1,360 legnths!!!!

Now to what really matters, who are we swimming for? We are asking for your sponsor so that our friends son, Jacob, can go to America for his stem cell treatment.

Jacob was born at 30 weeks when Michelle went very suddenly into premature labour. Whilst all the early birthing signs were normal, after being in hospital for 7 weeks, they found out that Jacob had suffered PVL, a severe form of white brain matter damage, resulting from a lack of blood flow and oxygen to the brain, leaving him with severe quadriplegic cerebral palsy.

This has meant Jacob has very little control over all four limbs, is reliant on a wheelchair, is non-verbal, and partially sighted with cortical visual impairment.

Whilst the family invest a lot of time in neurodevelopment therapy, to help try and build new pathways and develop Jacobs functional movement, they have been looking at Stem Cell therapy for many years now.

Stem cell transplantation is a regenerative therapy that has the potential to replace the damaged and non-functional cells in Jacobs brain.

The treatment involves several steps, beginning with extracting stem cells from Jacob. This is done by extracting fat from Jacob through liposuction, and then isolating the stem cells. These are then harvested to multiply several-fold, frozen and stored, to be used on several occasions at a later date.

By harvesting Jacob's healthy stem cells and transplanting these back in, these stem cells will help accelerate all the work they have been doing with Jacob to support his movement, development and communication.

This treatment is not available on the NHS, or in England either, which is why they need to go to the US and raise the huge grand total of £15,000!

Thank you so much in advance to anyone in a position to help us reach our goal. We are so looking forward to getting stuck in to our swim to help the most wonderful family and most importantly, Jacob.