The pair from Suffolk have put together 350 bags filled with goodies as a ‘thank you’ gift for NHS staff.
Ella and Cameron Fisher, aged 12 and 10 respectively, from Newmarket, Suffolk, made the bags as a gesture of thanks to staff in hospitals, mobile care units and ambulance services.
With the help of their parents Emma and Scott, the pair launched a GoFundMe page to help pay for goodies to go into the bags, and have smashed their target of £250 more than four times, raising over £1,240.
The idea originally surfaced when they noticed their father’s water-testing company H20 Scientific, donated PPE to a nurse, and this shed light to them on how difficult it is for NHS staff on the front line in the fight against coronavirus.
After donating to help the cause, the family decided they wanted to do more.
Their mum, Emma, agreed they could make between 10 and 20 shoeboxes to hand out as a surprise, and the GoFundMe page was set up.
However, the response they received was better than they could ever have imagined.
Emma, 39, told Oh My Goodness: “The GoFundMe grew fast, one local business gave us £250 and some companies donated pasta, soaps and wax melts.
“Cameron then asked if we could get reusable tote bags to help the environment, so by then we had 120 bags and started contacting lots of companies via social media.”
That’s when celebrities such as Leigh Francis, better known as Keith Lemon, and Davina McCall got in touch to offer any help they could for the Fisher family’s lovely gesture.
The Celebrity Juice host sent the family some messages and sketches to accompany the gifts in the packages.
“Before long we had around 60 companies across the country sending us things like drinks, hand creams, olives, shower gel, the list is endless,” she said.
With the money raised on the fundraising page the family have bought 350 bags that they plan to give out to Newmarket, Addenbrookes, and West Suffolk hospitals, to ambulance stations and a mobile chemotherapy unit.
The family have stressed how important it is to reward a “wide range of staff” including porters, cleaners, x-ray staff and those on reception in hospitals.
They dropped off their first packages yesterday, much to the delight of the ambulance staff who were “pleased and amazed” to receive them.
Emma said delivering the packages to NHS staff was extra special as she could reward the staff who have always “supported” her family.
She added: “We sent some to Nottingham children’s intensive care unit [who] saved Cameron’s life at five months old when he had kidney failure.
“We [as a country] really do take them for granted.”
If you would like to offer your support with the packages, you can visit the family’s fundraising page here.
On this day…
In 1895… Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrated to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention, the Popov lightning detector—a primitive radio receiver.
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