Fundraising boost towards Hednesford girl's treatment

Lyra Davis, aged two, has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and global development delay; conditions which require a lot of care, physiotherapy and speech therapy.

Her parents, Mark Davis and Jane Heggie, launched the Lyra Can appeal to raise £17,000 to take their daughter abroad for Oxygen Therapy, together with intensive therapy in the UK and extra physiotherapy at home.

Mr Davis said: “Lyra is our beautiful, happy, determined daughter, but she is between a year and 15 months behind other children. She has recently started crawling and pulling herself up on the furniture, but cannot talk yet and struggles with chewing.

"She suffers from involuntary muscle spasms, her body becomes rigid and she can’t move, often getting stuck in one position. We do daily physio, speech therapy and Lyra has to use sitting and standing frames as well as going swimming weekly so that she achieves as much as possible in life."

The Lyra Can appeal, supported by the Just 4 Children charity, applied to Persimmon Homes West Midlands for support through its Community Champions scheme.

The builder chose the appeal to be one of two groups picked every month to receive a match-funding donation.

Jane said: “Our dream is for Lyra to chase her brother Joseph around the garden and shout at him loudly. We get a good service from the NHS but the sad truth is that many of the newer treatments are not available.

Mrs Heggie said: “We have already raised more than £5,000 from donations through sponsored events and we cannot thank Persimmon Homes enough for their support, as this really is a boost for our appeal."

Stephen Cleveley, director-in-charge of Persimmon Homes West Midlands, added: “We are delighted to be able to help Lyra and her family. It is clear that she has tremendous love and support to help her overcome her difficulties and we hope the donation will allow the family to achieve their goals.

“If people were unsuccessful last month, we urge them to visit the Persimmon Homes website and to try again and hopefully they will become our next Community Champion.”

To find out more about the Lyra Can campaign visit the Facebook page www.facebook.com/lyracan1