Hi everyone!

We are Patrick and Teja and our family are currently raising funds for our hearty little boy, Koehn (now 8 years of age) to access intensive therapy this July/August to support his rehabilitation following a stroke he had in 2017 during birth. Koehn has faced so much more than many little boys of his age should, and has been left with several medical conditions as a result, including cerebral palsy which impacts the left hand side of his body due to the brain injury from the stroke.

In November we went to London to meet with the Charity Breathe Magic, their programme is an innovative intervention, incorporating specially selected magic tricks that provoke specific two-handed actions, as well as performance and problem-solving skills, for young people with hemiplegia and cerebral palsy (aged between 6-18 years).

Founded on world-class medical research, young people have access to over 60 hours of bimanual intensive therapy, transforming them into inspired young magicians! Highly specialist occupational therapists work alongside talented Magic Circle magicians to provide bimanual, goal-oriented, intensive therapy in a fun and nurturing group setting. One-to-one support is tailored to suit each young person’s particular strengths, needs, and their own personal goals.

By learning high-quality magic and performance skills, young people will:

- Increase their independence in self-care skills and other personal goals that they highlight.

- Improve their psychosocial wellbeing by building confidence, self-esteem and a can-do attitude.

- Develop the skills to participate in two-handed daily activities with increased independence.

- Meet and connect with other young people with hemiplegia.

We are very excited and feel so lucky that Koehn is being given this opportunity, the charity will part fund his place and are aiming to raise the rest of the necessary funds. Included in this, is our little girl Sara who will accompany us along with Koehn to London for 2 weeks.

We have lots of plans for fundraising in the pipeline, just getting things fine tuned currently but we shall keep you all updated

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has offered support already. We appreciate you all so much!

JUNE 2025 UPDATE:

Thank You All @ Breathe Magic Arts

This whole world-wind of an experience was initated by my partners curiosity to see what else is actually available to help treat Koehn’s cerebral palsy which we may be able to access.

We applied to Breath Arts Magic & were invited to attend the assessment day in November in Central London. Our son Koehn was assessed for the Summer 2025 course.

The November meet & greet was very welcoming & we immediately felt at home. The Breath Arts organisers were all approachable, helpful & showing that genuine humaneness which is essential to having faith & belief in such a programme.

Koehn thoroughly enjoyed himself & his little sister Sara was very impressed with what was demonstrated & offered to facilitate us, as a young family growing together.

After a few weeks we were informed that Koehn is accepted on the 60hr intensive therapy course. This news was met with great cheer & happiness by all of us.

As you may have read from our story previously, the course total, the accommodation & travel costs presented to us meant we would definitely need assistance to make our son’s dream of participating a reality. The Breath Arts team had the most significant & simple ideas of how we could tackle this hurdle. And they always instilled in us the belief along with our efforts that whatever we needed to accomplish to make this our reality could be done & how best we could do this. We have had so much reassuring assistance at every stage of this process.

Needless to say here we are at the end of June 2025 almost fully funded, have already paid for the therapy sessions for the whole duration of the course & we have been very very lucky in securing the most perfect accommodations for our families time in London.

The Breathe Arts Bursary team have been very kind in offering us a family room within the venue for the duration of the therapy program & we are all totally over the moon that our son will be participating in this world class intensive therapy program.

We have also received substantial donations from:

The Rotary Klub Medana-Goriška (Slovenia 🇸🇮)

Municipality of Brda (Slovenia 🇸🇮)

Lions Club International (Slovenia 🇸🇮)

Drew Potter of Breath Arts has herself been very instrumental in facilitating the coordination of these donations to our campaign.

Also Katie from Tree of Hope has been a constant with connections & links to those who could help us achieve whatever we need to reach our target.

There are a few further details we must now accomplish but the task is much less daunting now.

Thank You from all of my family to all of you have joined us & wished us well for this journey & experience. - Patrick McCrae (Koehn's Father)

7.5% of all donations to Tree of Hope in relation to this appeal will be allocated to the general charitable purposes of Tree of Hope to cover our core operating costs.

If we raise insufficient funds, or surplus funds, they will be used, if appropriate, to fund support for our child’s needs in accordance with Tree of Hope’s charitable objectives. If, in those circumstances, we are unable to use all or part of the funds for the benefit of our child, any funds that cannot be used will be transferred to be used for the general charitable purposes of Tree of Hope.