On May the 15th 2014, a local 5yr old girl suddenly passed away due to an undetected heart condition.
It was the end of the school day and she was running out to meet her mum and it happeed, she collapsed and it was too late, she died in the ambulance.
Since then, her mum claire, has been on a mission to get automatic defibs put into local schools and public areas. She has done a hell of a lot over the last year, as well as raising funds for SIDS, arrhymia charities etc.
So, as she has a lot of friends in our town, we wanted to show her that we are celebrating her dauther's life. On Thursday night, we all gathered together and plastered our streets and town in pink and purple balloons, ribbons and banners. There must have been a good 50-60 of us out there, even complete strangers from neighbouring towns, came over to help, when they heard what was happening.
This was all, of course, in secret, whilst claire was being kept inside her house.
A few of us were celebrating Thursday night with a few tinnies, as we were going around.....major hangover yesterday lol
Anyway, Friday morning rolled around and Claire awoke to find the start of something amazing.
Local news papers turned up, when they heard what was happening and the meridian news!
There was a memorial service in the morning, then claire was driven around Woodley (berks, uk), to see what we all had down. She was gobsmacked and a sad day had been turned into one of respect and happiness (to an extent).
At 4.30pm, her mum and dad planted a tree in memory of Lilly-may, in the local park and then there was a big balloon release, with about 200 people attending.
Those 2 days were fantastic and it goes to show that when a big community pulls together, they can change someone's day.
We are hoping to do this all again, next year.