Help Lily-Mai wave goodbye to cancer

When Altofts schoolgirl Lily-Mai Gordon’s granddad lost his battle with cancer on Christmas Eve 2012 her world was turn upside down.
By The Newsroom
Published 6th Jun 2015, 13:00 BST
9 year old Lily-Mai Gordon has set up her own campaign to beat cancer. She has launched the Goodbye Cancer campaign where people make a loom band bracelet.9 year old Lily-Mai Gordon has set up her own campaign to beat cancer. She has launched the Goodbye Cancer campaign where people make a loom band bracelet.
9 year old Lily-Mai Gordon has set up her own campaign to beat cancer. She has launched the Goodbye Cancer campaign where people make a loom band bracelet.

The nine-year-old, her elder brother Alex, 11, and Emily, seven, had to have counselling to help them come to terms with their loss.

But the big-hearted youngster was determined to make a difference in the battle against the illness after being inspired to launch her own Goodbye Cancer campaign.

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The project sees people buy a loomband bracelet in aid of Cancer Research UK and snap a selfie photograph waving goodbye to cancer. The picture is then posted on social media and people nominate friends to do the same. Ali Gordon, Lily-Mai’s mum, said: “All of the children were very close to their granddad and it hit them quite hard when he died so we arranged for them to have some counselling.

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“As part of that they all started to do arts and crafts so it was keeping their minds busy and then Lily-Mai was sat making loomband bracelets one day and she said ‘we could make these and sell them to make money for Cancer Research’ and that’s how it all started.”

The Altofts Junior School pupil then drew up a plan for the campaign including its name, logo and website herself and with the help of her mum she launched it on World Cancer Day in February. Lily-Mai’s classmates helped her out with a Goodbye Cancer day last month when they made more than 900 bracelets to sell and a number of celebrities have also pledged their support for the campaign. Mrs Gordon, 40, said: “She said everybody needs to know about the campaign so we thought about how we can make it go really far.

“Then she came up with the wave goodbye to cancer idea and started tweeting celebrities to get them to support it.I’m really proud of her. I’m chuffed to bits for her. As a mum you want your kids to be everything they want to be and do everything they want to do and this is exactly what she wants to do.”

For more information about the campaign, which has raised more than £1,000 for Cancer Research so far, visit www,goodbyecancer.org and www.justgiving.com/goodbyecancer.