This Starlight Day, Friday 7 May, Starlight Children’s Foundation (Starlight) needs your help to raise $650,000 to give happiness to thousands of sick kids and their families.
As Starlight’s biggest national fundraising day, Starlight Day celebrates the positive impact its vital services have on the lives of children and families experiencing hospitalisation and serious illness.
Every minute of every day a child is admitted to hospital in Australia. When sick kids’ worlds are filled with hospital and treatment, the need for laughter and joy has never been greater.
Key to delivering this much-needed happiness, is Starlight’s Wishgranting and in-hospital services (including Captain Starlight and the Starlight Express Room) which offer sick kids and their families respite from the stress and pain of illness and treatment.
The challenges of 2020 have meant that right now, there are many more children with wish referrals than ever before, with 960 sick kids currently waiting for their Starlight Wish.
For kids like seven-year-old Anabela Kleyn with Spina Bifida and VACTERL Association, her complex medical conditions mean that she spends a lot of time in isolation, and hospital often felt like a second home.
“With her first life-saving surgery at just 48 hours old, and over 400 trips to hospital since, hospital has been a constant in our lives. Without Starlight, hospital would be scary, daunting and lonely, and Captain Starlight brings positivity, sunshine and light into the darkest of places,” said Anabela’s mother, Sarah Pearce.
Starlight relies on the community for support, with as little as $39 giving one sick child access to Starlight’s services.
CEO of Starlight, Louise Baxter, said: “This past year has given us all personal experiences of uncertainty, social isolation and disruption. For children and their families managing serious illness, this is something they face every day.
“Every dollar spent on Starlight’s services must be raised first and foremost by the generosity of the community. That’s why this Starlight Day, we ask you to dig deep so we can continue delivering the happiness and positivity that helps improves thousands of sick kids’ resilience, confidence and overall wellbeing.”
To donate today, visit: https://www.starlightday.org.au/
Story source: Starlight Children’s Foundation
Ryan Fritz
Ryan Fritz started The Advocate in 2014 to provide not-for-profits and charities another media platform to tell their worthwhile hard news stories and opinion pieces effortlessly. In 2020, Ryan formed a team of volunteer journalists to help spread even more high-quality stories from the third sector. He also has over 10 years experience as a media and communications professional for not-for-profits and charities and currently works at Redkite, a childhood cancer charity.
