Raising funds for Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Leukaemia Research – The Reuben Tribute Fund

Red 4 Reu aims to raise funds and awareness for childhood cancer in memory of Reuben. We aim to sell a minimum of 72 Red4Reu mini-bobble hat key rings in 72 hours to celebrate 72 years of the NHS.

The hats are £3 each and can only be collected from Alverthorpe (Wakefield) and Croston (Leyland) areas. You can by all means donate a little more, should you wish too but £3 will go a long way. Please contact the following once you have purchased to organise collection.

Helen on 15foxglovefolly@gmail.com or mobile (Alverthorpe area)

Jayne on jwhittle21@hotmail.com or mobile (Croston area)

Sadly, we are a family, who have lived through a roller coaster of emotions for nearly 5 years, seeing our beautiful, brave Reuben fight until the very end with all his might to beat this cruel disease. Reuben was diagnosed with ALL just before he was 3 years old and to complicate things further, he also developed the Phyladelphia Gene, which is extremely rare. Reuben’s treatment was constant: both at home and when in hospital. Successfully, Reuben reached remission and we rang the bell and he stayed in remission for just under two years until it returned. As a family we were again shocked and devastated but pulled together and thought we can beat this again. Reuben had a successful bone marrow transplant and things again were on the up. However, it was always in the back of our mind: would the leukaiemia return again? Unfortunately, it did. As we waited for Reuben to be fit enough for the CART transplant, Reuben’s twin brother, Rocco, donated his stem cells for transplant but sadly, Reuben lost this fight on 22.10.19 at only 7 years old. As a family we are devastated and there will always be a piece missing forever from our family unit. Reuben was and always will be our little hero as we can honestly say we have never seen anyone else possess the courage, bravery and positivity that he had. With that in mind, we wanted to celebrate Reuben’s life and keep Reuben’s memory alive by doing something positive.

Reuben was football crazy and was a talented young goalkeeper. He was officially Liverpool’s biggest fan. Reuben also loved to wear a hat, beit a cap or a bobble hat or a beanie. Therefore, with red being Reuben’s favourite colour along with his love for football and Liverpool, Red 4 Reu, was decided as a fitting tribute to this courageous young boy.

Reuben has a twin brother, Rocco, and a cousin called Martha. Being a similar age, they were and always will be very close and over their very short time together created lots of memories that will last a life time. Martha, who is 9, suggested making something to sell to raise awareness and funds for Leukaiemia research but also wanted to do this is memory of Reuben.  Martha decided to make mini-bobble hat key rings. We are hoping that by selling these, we can raise vital funds for Royal Machester Children’s Hospital Leukaiemia Reseach – The Reuben Tribute Fund.

All that is left to say is ‘Thank you’ for taking the time to read this
and for buying a bobble hat as your donation is greatly appreciated and know that with your kindness, we are one step closer to finding kinder treatments and ultimately finding a cure for Leukaemia in memory of Reuben.