Families we support – a swing for Isabella

Isabella has always enjoyed a trip to our local park to play on the various bits of play equipment with her favourite being the swings. Unfortunately, over the past 6 months, Isabella’s core strength in her upper body has deteriorated so much that she is no longer able to sit un-supported, so she can no longer use a normal child’s swing.

One of the goals of THE CATS FOUNDATION charity is to help and and support children who suffer from Tay-Sachs Disease to enjoy as normal a life as possible. With this in mind we approached the Trustees of THE CATS FOUNDATION to ask if they could help provide a specialist swing for our garden.

The process was quite simple, we sent a letter to the Trustees detailing the type of swing that would be suitable for Isabella and what benefit it would be to her. After looking through the various specialist websites we opted for one from Special Needs Toys. The swing has a supported bucket seat with full harnesses to ensure Isabella is strapped in tightly and can not slip out.

Within days of sending in our application we received an email from Daniel saying we had been successful and that the swing would be delivered within 72 hours. The swing has now arrived and Isabella has used it several times each day and has been squealing with delight.

One of the advantages of the process is that the swing will be owned by the charity and when the day comes that Isabella has no further use for it we can pass it onto another child who can also enjoy it.

We would like to thank everyone who has been involved in raising money for THE CATS FOUNDATION so that families like ours who are dealing with this terrible disease can be supported in this way.