Last Saturday March 25, a fun day was held at Rye Sports Centre in aid of raising funds for a special 4×4 wheelchair for a young Tilling green resident Mason Skinner.
Ten-year-old Mason has a rare form of muscular dystrophy, called collagen VI deficiency. He currently uses an electric wheelchair each day. But, because of the type of chair Mason uses, he is limited as to where he can go. So the new 4×4 chair would allow Mason the freedom to go almost anywhere independently with or without the family.
There were stalls run by the local Guides, Brownies and Rother Youth Group as well as a stall selling candles run by Clair Debley Turner, facepainting, a tombola, guess the weight of the cake, name the teddy, penalty kicks (run by Andy Stoodley) and a raffle comprising prizes collected from local shops.
The day also had a couple of events for which participants had to obtain sponsors and Shalimar Skinner (Mason’s sister) and Brownie leader Emily Hall both did a sponsored swim.
The other sponsored event was where Mason, Clifford Skinner (Mason’s dad) and myself were doing laps around the basketball court at the rear of the sports centre in our wheelchairs and mobility scooters.
Between the three of us we managed to do 164 laps and hats off to Clifford who did his 50 laps in a manual wheelchair.
The day raised just under £600 which will be increased once all the sponsorship money has been collected.
Mason’s step mum Sherry Skinner said thank you to everyone who helped on the day and also to Rye Sports Centre for allowing us to hold the event there.
Photos: Sherry Skinner