THE dad of a cancer-fighting girl – who along with his friends raised £67,000 for Cancer Research by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro – says he was ‘proud’ to visit a research centre funded by donations.
When dad-of-two Stephen Bennett from New Bold was told that his youngest daughter, Leah, had cancer, he knew exactly who to turn to for support.
The 42-year-old relied on his childhood friends – who all grew up in St Helens – who have each either faced their own cancer diagnoses or lost loved ones to the disease.
Over the past 18 months the friends have held a host of events including a mini music festival, a black-tie casino night, a sponsored swim, numerous raffles and auctions, and they have even sold food door to door and it all culminated in August when they summited Mount Kilimanjaro - taking their fundraising total to £67,000.
To thank the group for raising such a huge sum, Cancer Research UK invited them down to their new research centre in Manchester, to see how the fundraised money will go to try and find new treatments to fight cancer.
Stephen, who works as a strategy manager at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “It’s just nice to see what the money goes on really.
“When you raise money for a big charity people say ‘oh it pays for staff and it doesn’t go towards treatment’ but actually for Cancer Research UK, 80p out of every £1 raised goes into research.
“Research like this looks for new ways to understand cancer and by doing that hopefully find alternative treatments and even a cure one day.
“Leah is on this inhibitor treatment which doesn’t get rid of the cancer but it stops the cells from replicating meaning it’s stable.
“That’s amazing and that kind of alternative treatment is what they discover in labs like the one we went to see.
“It matters so much because to me my daughter is here, living her life and thriving despite having cancer, and that’s because of treatments and research facilities like this.
“The centre is new as it burned down in 2017 and it’s had to be completely rebuilt, everyone in the North West who donated large sums was invited as a big chunk has gone into the centre and it was so eye-opening to see the other side of everything. It was a proud moment actually.
“We were shown cancer cells under a microscope which scientists were doing tests on to see what causes them to replicate and doing things to the cells to see if anything stops it.
“It was fascinating and without more research there will not be a cure. Thank you so much for everyone who donated. The money really will make all the difference.”
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