Fundraising in La Cala Hills

Two prior fundraising events, leading upto a spectacular grand finale fundraising night at the Phoenix Lounge in La Cala Hills, on Friday 16th October, raised a fantastic total of 1775 euros which will go to the Tomas Leighton Care Trust Fund.
This little boy of four years has battled since birth with various complications during his young life.

Tomas Leighton is four and a half years old. He has West Syndrome (a severe form of children’s epilepsy) and visual cortex blindness, which prevents him from understanding the world around him using his eyes. He also has Cerebral Palsy, which means has global development problems, cannot stand or walk unaided (since he has no balance) and he has problems speaking, feeding himself and has a general global learning delay.
Tomas has had a panel assessment of his range of problems that has classified him as 82% disabled.
Tomas has physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and specialised touch, hearing and speech stimulation sessions, to develop his useable senses. He requires regular EEG tests, to monitor his brain activity and many other scheduled appointments with ophthalmologists, neurologists, radiologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, rehabilitation specialists and audiologists for the various areas and senses that are affected. These involve many and varied medical appointments both in Spain and in the UK.

Despite his many problems, Tomas is a very happy and positive little boy, who is very loving and giving. Tomás concentrates hard and wants to learn. Because he listens and learns, he is progressing amazingly well, in spite of all the obstacles he has to overcome.

His parents are constantly seeking information and medical advances which may help Tomas to progress to his full potential, this will also include Botox injections to help relax the tendons and muscles in his legs and prevent hip dislocation. Also there is hope that, in the future, stem cell therapy may be able to help overcome some of Tomas´s disabilities. Many of you may have heard of Tomas from the last few years through other fundraising events.

This latest event was all organised by Wayne Redman, a local personal trainer from La Cala Hills. He raised a large part of the funds from a sponsored run on the 20th September in the UK called the ‘ Great North Run ‘. Wayne was amazed and gratified by the level of Sponsorship and spontaneous donations he received from people who wished to support him in his efforts to raise funds for Tomas.
Spurred on by all the support he received, he now aims to do the Iron Man triathlon next May in the name of Tomas Leighton Care ( TLC ). This will include a 3 mile run, 112 mile bike ride and to top it all off, a 26 mile run. Previously he had vowed he would never do this gruelling test of total fitness and stamina again, but Tomas has given him the determination and reason to put himself through the months of training required for such an event once more.

Craig Thompson from La Cala organised a raffle on the finale night which was an astounding success with wonderful prizes and was a great help in topping up the funds raised to such a momentus total.
Also Jon Battison ( better known as Catwalk ) did a 24 hour darts match the evening before and, though he was shattered on the night, he made the effort to ensure he attended to meet Tomas and his parents personally.
All in all, it was a success for everybody concerned and, to top it all, towards the end of the evening Tomas, in his specialised wheel chair, said ‘ Fank you ‘ over the microphone and brought tears to the eyes of many people watching.

Tomas´ parents, Jon and Jill Leighton, would like to thank Wayne, Craig, Jon, all local businesses who donated prizes for the raffle, the Pheonix Lounge for hosting the evening and all who attended and gave generously to make the evening such a resounding success.