Auction raises £22k for John’s new wheelchair (From Cotswold Journal)

Auction raises £22k for John’s new wheelchair

12:00pm Friday 15th March 2013 in News By Freya Leng

THE parents of a boy who suffers from muscular dystrophy have smashed their £20,000 fund-raising target to buy a specialised wheelchair – in just one night.

Angela Dickson, aged 37, of Bledington, near Stow, and her husband Paul, 38, said they could not believe how much was raised on Friday, March 1, at an auction of promises at the village primary school.

About £22,000 was raised at the event – three times more than the couple expected to raise – which will buy an all-terrain wheelchair for their son John, who was born with the medical condition.

The nine-year-old, a pupil at Bledington Primary School, struggles to walk and it is a challenge to keep up with his friends when he goes out to play.

Mrs Dickson said the school hall was packed with about 200 people bidding on 50 lots including a signed England cricket bat which sold for £1,700 and even a rubber duck which fetched £220.

“It went really well, better than we could ever imagine,”

she said. “We are still counting the pennies and getting donations coming in. We still can’t get over it.”

Mrs Dickson said since launching the fund-raising appeal the response from the community had been astounding.

“People have been so great,”

she said. “We’ve had people in the village drop envelopes with £200 in through the door. We’ve had people turn up at the door and left cheques.

“John has four or five friends in Great Ormond Street Hospital with the same condition. It would be lovely to help another child in the same way.”

The new wheelchair has already been ordered and will be with the family within six weeks.