Our beautiful baby son Rycroft passed away in June 2023, from an infection following a bone marrow transplant, which was his only option because of a very rare genetic condition. He was just 16 months old.

The day before his funeral, we launched a fundraising campaign, aiming to raise money to support three different charities who have supported us over the last 2 years: Colchester General Hospital’s Children’s Ward, where Ry spent a lot of his short life; Great Ormond Street Hospital’s Fox Ward, who cared for him during his transplant; and SDS UK, a charity aiming to raise funds and awareness of Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome, the rare genetic condition that Rycroft suffered from.

We were overwhelmed by the generosity of people, not just through donations, but people who ran races, walked up mountains, or took to the rugby pitch, all to raise awareness, and money in memory, of our beautiful little boy. In total we raised £45,000 - you can view our previous fundraising pages here, here, here and here.

The amount we raised was incredible, and we feel one more push could get us even further. Our ambition is to raise a total of £60,000 by February 14th 2024 – that’s £20,000 for each charity.

 Great Ormond Street Hospital, Fox Ward

Colchester Hospital, Children's Ward

SDS UK

On 15th February 2024, on what would be Rycroft’s second birthday, we intend to deliver a cheque to Colchester General Hospital for their third of funds raised. Rycroft spent a lot of time on the children’s ward at Colchester and celebrated his first birthday there, so it is a fitting day to hand over the donation.

The 29th February 2024 marks Rare Disease Day in the UK, a day that aims to highlight diseases that are often unknown or overlooked. On this day we intend to hand over a cheque to SDSUK, for their third of total funds raised, with the aim of raising awareness of Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome and other rare diseases.

The 13rd March is the anniversary of Rycroft’s admittance to Fox Ward at GOSH for his bone marrow transplant. We intend to use this anniversary to hand over the cheque for Fox Ward’s third of the funds raised, as a thank you to the amazing team who looked after our boy and fought so hard for him.

We want to raise money and awareness to help other families who may be experiencing what we’ve been through in the last two years – in the hope that more children can be cared for, treated and will be able to go on to lead happy and healthy lives.

We miss Rycroft every day, but the knowledge that so many people out there care deeply about him, and want to help other children like him is the greatest consolation we could ever receive.

Thank you,

Andrew and Catherine