Supporting the charities that supported Ella.

Some of the family members of Ella Anderson, are challenging ourselves to complete the Belfast City Half Marathon on Sunday 21st September 2025.
The team is made up of her mum Nicola, brother Jake, uncle Mark and 2 cousins Robert and Sydney.  Also joining us is Noah Hayley. 

The reason for this challenge, Nicola’s daughter Ella was diagnosed in February 2023 at 7 years old with a cancerous brain tumour. She underwent surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy over the duration of 13 months - so we are doing 13.1 miles.
1 mile for every month of treatment Ella had to endure.

The 2 charities that we are raising funds for have both offered us amazing support.

The Children’s Cancer Unit Charity aim to fund and support the work of the Children’s Cancer Unit at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children.  Part of their support is support for families which we were able to avail of, but most importantly for us as a family, they fund specialist staff roles in a range of disciplines including a Play Therapist, Brain Tumour dedicated Social Worker, Research Nurse Specialist and several others.  Given the recent news reports about staffing issues in the Children's Cancer and Haematology Unit this has highlighted even more so the need for this amazing charity’s support.

For us as a family this meant we had a social worker who was with us every step of the way, totally aware of the specific issues we were facing as parents of a child with a brain tumour, as each journey is so different depending on the type of cancer treatment.  Without her, we would have drowned in the journey we were on from staying 6 weeks at Royal Victoria Hospital post-surgery, to navigating our 7 weeks stay in Manchester to avail of Proton Beam Radiotherapy, to the time spent travelling up and down to Belfast for Chemotherapy and  unplanned admissions!

The Cancer Fund for Children is our 2nd charity of choice. 
They provided so much support for Ella, ourselves and Ella’s brother Jake through group activity sessions with other children in similar situations, and stays at their Daisy Lodge facility in Newcastle, Co, Down with other families.  They introduced us to art therapy and play therapy that we totally underestimated in the early stages of our journey through dedicated one to one Cancer Support Specialists who came to Ella both at hospital and at home to help her to understand the transition to life after cancer diagnosis and treatment.
 
We ask you to support us in supporting them in this challange we face.  As anyone who knows us know, running hasn't come naturally to me, nor Jake or Robert, so its sheer determination to fullfill our commitment to our donators that will see us across the finish line along with Mark and Sydney.

All money raised by us will be split 50/50 between these 2 amazing charities in an effort to give back a little of what they gave us.