Charity Day at Downpatrick CC

Downpatrick Cricket Club are hosting a charity T10 tournament on Sunday 17th July to raise funds for the Children's Cancer Unit Charity at the Royal Belfast Hospital.

Downpatrick, Drumaness Superkings, Dundrum and Saintfield will battle it out on the day with a kids soft ball match also taking place. There will be a bbq, raffle and other events for all the family.

The charity has been chosen as the Cancer Unit have been caring for Luke Gilmore, son of former player Chris Gilmore. Luke was diagnosed with Leukaemia at the end of January aged just 8 months. Since then Luke has had 4 rounds of chemotherapy and spent over 14 weeks in hospital. The next step is for Luke to receive a bone marrow transplant in Bristol.

We also hope to raise awareness of the need for blood donors and volunteers to join the bone marrow register. Luke has received countless life saving blood transfusions over the last few months. There is a real shortage of blood donors and most blood donated is used within 2-3 days of being donated.

There is also a need for bone marrow donors to join the register. A worldwide search for Luke produced 3 matches, one in America, one in Germany and one in the UK.

Anyone interested in potentially becoming a donor can find out more via the following links:

https://www.anthonynolan.org
https://www.dkms.org.uk/register-now
https://nibts.hscni.net/

Luke's family would like to thank all the clubs taking part, Downpatrick for hosting and organising and Jeff Maguire for all their hard work