PEOPLE NEWS EXTRA


CALL FOR INDUSTRY TO GET BEHIND EVIE’S GIFT


Following the death of his teenage daughter Evie this year, Rainy Day Trust CEO Bryan Clover has established the charity, Evie’s Gift, offering financial support to parents with children admitted to hospital with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions. He talks more about how his background with the Trust helped in his new venture and how the industry can show its support. Fiona Garcia reports.


old daughter, to “a very rare, highly aggressive brain tumour” at the start of the year.


B Evie’s condition was so rare, that


there are just 30 cases a year in the UK, and only 400 across all of North America and Europe. She was diagnosed whilst on holiday with her parents in San Sebastian in Spain, which led to two emergency operations to save her life, before she was airlifted home and admitted to Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital, which benefited from an interactive MRI scanner.


Meanwhile, Bryan made the drive back from Spain to the UK to be with his family.


He explained that, thinking about where they were going to stay that night hadn’t even crossed his mind. “It was a Macmillan nurse who asked us first and, that’s when we started looking into local hotels, which could cost around £120 a night.” During their month in


Bristol


Royal Children’s Hospital, Bryan and Patsy were fortunate enough to be accommodated in the hospital’s bunk rooms for four nights, and then at the charity Ronald McDonald House for the next four weeks. They jumped ahead of 19 other families on the waiting list because of the severity of Evie’s condition. But other parents weren’t so lucky and, too often, Bryan and Patsy saw frightened, tired parents sleeping on chairs in the Parents’ Room/kitchen or even sleeping in their cars because they couldn’t afford the local hotels. And, this experience is what has


spurred Bryan on to create Evie’s Gift. “If your child needs emergency specialist treatment, you can end up anywhere. You could be sent to a hospital that is hundreds of miles


12 DIY WEEK 11 MAY 2018


ryan explains that “the charity, Evie’s Gift, was born out of tragedy” when he and his wife Patsy lost


their 13-year-


from home…There are all sorts of organisations, such as CLIC Sargent, who help when you get home. You can get a grant but it takes weeks to come through. There is a lot of stuff focused on the children but nothing is set up to help the parents.” He continues: “For the parents, this situation is so stressful, so tiring, so overwhelming that they can’t see straight. We can help them by tapping into other trusts, such as the Rainy Day Trust. “When you are in this situation, you don’t want to spend a single minute away from your child. Even going to bed at night, the nurses had to encourage us out of the door.” Evie’s Gift went live on March 7. Stone King, which works with the Rainy Day Trust, offered its services free of charge get the charity up and running, which Bryan describes as “incredible,” and the application was approved by the Commission in just two days.


Bryan has worked for a number of charities since he came out of the Air Force in 2003 and has been able to use that experience to great effect. “My background in charity work helped. I knew my way around the system; I knew what needed to be done and the hoops to jump through to get set up. “I had even already worked out how we were going to fundraise, so I suppose I did have a head start. “There are 165,000 charities in this country and a lot are set up by parents who want to make a difference. I was able to pick up the Rainy Day Trust model and duplicate it, which has been an advantage.”


Show your support Fundraising is


already going


well, with £9,800 raised through crowdfunding and Bryan adding that he has “another £3,500-worth of cheques sitting on my desk”. A 13-mile coastal walk to raise money for both Evie’s Gift and Julia’s House Hospice has had


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