Spennymoor will ‘paint the town orange’ on Friday, 1st February, led by the 100-year-old town hall which will be washed overall with orange light as soon as it is dark, as schools and businesses across the town join in with Muscular Dystrophy UK’s national Go Orange for a Day, to raise money for local fundraising campaign, Love for Louis.
On Friday, 1st February, pupils at schools including King Street Primary and Pre-School, Middlestone Moor Primary School, Ox Close Primary School and Bewley Primary School, will swap their usual uniforms for orange clothes and accessories – the colour of the charity Muscular Dystrophy UK – in return for a £1 donation to the charity.
The town is getting behind the day in support of the Love for Louis Family Fund, a fundraising campaign set up by local parents Sarah and Sam Jackson after their son, Louis, was diagnosed with Becker muscular dystrophy in June 2015, at just three years old.
Becker muscular dystrophy is a muscle-wasting condition, caused when a vital muscle protein called dystrophin does not work properly.
The condition causes muscles to weaken and waste over time, leading to increasingly severe disability and in some cases, life-threatening health problems as heart and breathing muscles weaken.
Since the campaign was launched in February 2017, the Jacksons, who live in Spennymoor, have already raised over £3,000 for research into Becker.
They are hoping that with the support of the local community, Go Orange for a Day will help them continue towards their £5,000 target – enough to fund a month of research into this, as yet, incurable condition.
Louis’ mum, Sarah said: “Louis is just Louis. He is unique, fiery, special, funny and completely his own person. He does not give one jot what people think of him and lives life for himself, the Louis way.
“The diagnosis turned our lives on their heads but meeting Louis’ medical team at Newcastle’s Centre for Life gave us hope.
“As a family and with Louis joining in as much as he can, we do as much as possible to raise money and awareness to fight this condition.”
Spennymoor Town Mayor, Cllr Clive Maddison said the Town Council was delighted to get behind the campaign: “As Mayor of Spennymoor Town Council, I am delighted that we can help with raising awareness of Muscular Dystrophy by lighting the Town Hall up orange on the 1st February,” he said. “Go Orange for a Day is a national event encouraging people to wear orange and to make a donation to enable further research to be carried out in to this terrible disease.”
Stuart Murray Muscular Dystrophy UK’s North East and Cumbrian Regional Development Manager, said: “Led by the Town Hall, we are so grateful to all the schools and businesses in and around Spennymoor who have taken this cause to their hearts and will be joining in with Go Orange for a Day.
“It is thanks to fundraisers like the Jacksons that we are able to continue to fund essential pioneering research into potential treatments for muscle-wasting conditions, as well as supporting families like Louis’.”
There’s still time for more schools and businesses to sign up and take part by registering at www.musculardystrophyuk.org/go-orange.
South West Durham News covering news across County Durham.
