On the 2 February, Alex Dowsett and the team at Little Bleeders (LB) hosted a fundraising ball to help increase awareness of the work that we are doing. The funds raised will be used to provide support to young people with blood disorders so they can participate in the sports and activities they love and to support more consistent personalised care across the UK.
Life with a blood disorder is not always a simple one for over 3000 young people and their families in the UK, especially when it comes to health, fitness and sports as there are often inconsistencies in the advice and guidance available. Little Bleeders is dedicated to helping young boys and girls with haemophilia have the same opportunities as their peers to live a normal life in school and through organised sports and activities.
Through this fundraising event our goal was to raise funds to help us to expand our network of young ambassadors and to work with families to help them support their young people with blood disorders in sport. We try to provide resources and advice and a platform for having the fears of many families alleviated. We believe that with careful management and the support of a great network of clinicians and therapists, a blood condition should not stop young people from being fit, active, ambitious and from having fun!
Thanks to various fundraising opportunities such as a silent auction with some amazing sport themed items, our Cotton Wool Ball pillow auction that involved guests helping to fill a blood drop shaped pillow signed by Alex with cotton wool balls, a sponsored ‘cycle ride’ with special cyclists and LB youth ambassadors Georgia and Harry and a raffle, the event raised just shy of £20,000 to help support the work of Alex and the LB team.
Over the next year this money will go to support an Ambassador’s Day that will bring together LB youth ambassadors from all over the UK to help spread the LB message of ‘move more, be more’ as well as allow us to provide useful resources for families of newly diagnosed young people. It will help us to further our work in providing advice and guidance for young people and sports clubs, schools and teams across the UK allowing young haemophiliacs to safely access the sports and activities they want to participate in.
Alex and the LB team would like to thank everyone involved in making the event happen as well as to all of the guests and everyone who generously donated to our cause. We can’t wait to do it all again next year!
