52 Lives

#160 Evie

Request: Donations / Sensory Equipment / AstroTurf / Messages

This week, we’d like to help change the life of 10 year old Evie from Somerset.

When Evie was born, she wasn’t expected to survive long enough to leave the hospital. She has cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Her seizures are severe and affect her heart and stop her from breathing all together.

In 2015, her mum Mykala was told that her little girl didn’t have long left to live. But Evie has defied the odds and almost 3 years on, she is still fighting and still smiling.

Evie is being cared for full time by her mum, who is a single parent. She is house bound most of the time and is connected to machines that help to keep her alive. She has serious breathing problems and regular seizures.

“It's the worst feeling in the world to see your child so ill when you’re unable to help. When she is sad or in pain, all I want to do is cuddle her and make her feel better, but every time I touch her she has a seizure,”  her mum said.

Evie is trying new medication to help with her seizures, and physio to help her learn and develop. But being stuck inside all the time makes life harder for both Evie and her mum.

With summer coming up, we want to give them both something incredible to look forward to - time outside together in a beautiful space, anytime they like! With your help, we want to create a sensory space for Evie in her own back garden. Their garden as it is isn’t suitable for Evie’s needs. It needs to be paved or Astroturfed, so Evie can access it properly in her chair. And we also want it to be filled with amazing sensory things for Evie to help her develop, relax and - most importantly - to have fun!

Mykala says all she wants to do is keep her beautiful daughter smiling. And with your help, we want to help her do just that.

What We Need

Heywood Prep School kindly made 52 Lives their school's charity of the year last year, and gave us a very generous donation. We will be using that money to help pay for the construction of Evie's sensory garden. Thank you so much to all the staff, students and parents at Heywood Prep! We still need to raise some more funds to cover some of the other costs...so this is what we need:

1. AstroTurf: If any kind companies are able to help supply this, please get in touch by completing the form below.

2. Donations: To help cover the additional costs of the garden. If we raise more than what is needed for the garden, any additional funds will be used to help improve Evie's life in other ways. To make a donation, please click the link below. 

3. Sensory equipment: We have set up an Amazon wishlist filled with sensory and gardening items to fill Evie's garden! We also included some gift cards to help pay for some additional things that weren't able to be added to a wishlist. To buy an item, please click on the link below. They will be sent directly to Evie from Amazon.

4. Messages: To send a kind message to  Evie or her mum, please fill in the form below. We will pass all the messages along (your email address will be removed). Alternatively, messages can be posted to: 52 Lives (Evie), PO Box 3154, Reading, RG1 9AT. These messages make such a difference to the people we help.

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What We Did

We raised almost £500 in donations towards the garden. Also, the amazing students, staff and parents at Heywood Prep made 52 Lives their charity of the year so we are using some of those funds to help create Evie's sensory garden. 

We also were able to give Evie every single item on her sensory garden wishlist, as well as almost £200 in amazon gift cards! Thank you so much to everyone who bought something for her. The garden is still under construction, but below are some before and after photos showing the changes we have helped to make to the garden so far! 

A very big thank you also to the children at Haigh Road and Westmoor Primary schools for making beautiful cards and gifts for Evie xx 

"I am completely overwhelmed by how much people have helped us, especially to Hannah for nominating us, and 52 Lives for setting everything up. I took Evie out in the garden for the first time in years and she didn’t sink into the grass. It’s a little thing but changes Evie’s quality of life so much. The pictures we received from the school are amazing.
Again thank you so much."

Mykala and Evie