When I heard that Lily-Mae had neuroblastoma a little bit of me died. When I set up The Sunni Mae Trust a little bit of this bit was reborn. We do what we’ve got to do. In this way what I have done is a selfish, selfless act.
At first my goal for the Trust was modest, raise €5,000 to help Jude and Leighton (Lily-Mae’s parents). When we passed this mark on the launch day I had to re-evaluate. The next goal was €40,000. As Jude and Leighton are both self –employed dancers who would receive no welfare assistance, I wanted to raise enough money so that they didn’t have any financial burden in the 18 months that treatment would last.
We have now raised over €100,000 since the Trust was launched.
A truly staggering amount when you consider, in the most part, the donations have come from normal Irish people at a time of record unemployment and a seemingly unending recession. This makes me proud to be Irish and restores my faith in humanity.
However, we have received €0 from corporate Ireland. This despite writing to the top 1000 companies and appearances on television, radio and every nationwide newspaper and still nothing. This makes me ashamed to be Irish and proves that the capitalist system that we live in, where profit is put before people is deeply flawed.
We did get one offer from the corporates, Fyffes offered bananas. I have a cunning plan, if I can form a partnership between Fyffes and an international book company, I could release 50 Shades of Grey-The Interactive Edition!
Paul Hayes (Uncle)