GRABASEAT DONATION!
23 April 2012The AMAZING folks at Grabaseat have come to the party with two tickets for Melinda to Sydney return from Napier!!!
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Melinda Bennett's Dream Come True.
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Small change
22 April 2012My apologies people, I had stated Bowel Cancer when in fact Melinda's mum has Ovarian cancer. ?This was entirely my fault.
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Melinda's story
20 April 2012One of the reasons I started nzgirl.co.nz was because I knew that online was a place where young women who might ordinarily find real life communications difficult, could break through shyness and connect with other like minded girls. What I didnft bank on was a person like Melinda Bennett, who doesnft just use social media to conquer personal barriers, but as a way to communicate with people full stop and lead a fulfilling life. You see, Melinda was born with Frieidreichs Ataxia a debilitating, degenerative neuro-muscular disorder that causes slurred speech, hearing loss, vision impairment, diabetes, a serious heart condition, scoliosis and loss of coordination. Melinda is in a wheelchair and she is reliant on her primary caregiver (her father) for almost everything. Yet, I met Melinda (aka @melindamouse) on Twitter. Here, shefs just like the rest of us. She can step into other worlds, take a break from her disease and come alive. She's funny, sensitive, inquisitive and caring. Shefs also not afraid to ask for assistance and If you tissues, Melindafs mum has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and Melinda is desperate to raise money to see her mum while she can (she lives in Sydney). Like many of you, we get asked to dig into our pockets daily and quite frankly, we develop thick skins. We get used to saying no. For some reason, this time I didnft ? I asked my team to pull something together and on my next trip to the Hawkes Bay I personally dropped the large box of goodies to Melinda in Napier. The day I dropped it off, I sent Scottie in for me ? as I was really sick with bronchitis and didnft want to pass it around. In all honesty, Ifm sure in my mind I had done my good deed done for the day and I could get back to bed. But what I hadnft counted on was Melinda painstakingly creating a canvas (as above) for me that made me stop and realize how much I had to be grateful for. That there was so much more I could do for this young, beautiful girl to help her dream come true. She didnft ask for this, she was just doing everything she could within her power to bring a simple and fair dream to life. She wasnft asking for much. Yet Ifd been sick for two weeks and whinged incessantly about it. She wasnft whinging. No complaints ? just a simple request for help to see her mum. So here I am, friends, cap in hand asking for you to join me in contributing to help Melinda make her dream come true. She needs around $5000 for both her and her father to get to Sydney, with a specialist caregiver and transport. It will be her Dadfs first holiday in 20 years ? since Melinda was diagnosed he has been a single dad and given up everything to care for her. Ifve set up a givealittle.co.nz account and if you can contribute in any way we would both be hugely grateful. Even if itfs just a little bit (but feel free to make it a lot!) or if you can help extend this out to your personal network, that would be also wonderful. All contributions hugely appreciated.
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