‘No family should face financial ruin just because their child is fighting cancer’
DO YOU know an incredible woman — a campaigner, teacher entrepreneur or health worker who goes above and beyond — who deserves recognition? If so, you can nominate her for the Inspirational Women Awards, in association with M&S. The five winners will get to attend a WOW Foundation event at Buckingham Palace in March. Find all the details on how to enter plus full terms and conditions at dailymail. co.uk/inspirationalwomen2024.
SITTINg in a hospital ward with her sick baby daughter, Anita Marinelli would have been forgiven for thinking only of her own child’s welfare.
It was 2014 and, barely a year old, Eliza had already been in hospital six times with breathing problems. Her lungs were slow to develop and the simplest cold could rapidly turn into pneumonia, as it had on this occasion.
Yet as Anita looked around the hushed ward, she began to think about all the other anxious parents whose children were even more gravely ill than hers. Parents who faced months or even years of unremitting worry and stress. She wondered how on earth they were coping.
It was a moment of empathy that changed Anita’s life and has transformed the lives of countless families around the country. Her charity, My Shining Star, was founded in 2016, and now raises £100,000 a year to support children and families affected by cancer. In total, she has raised almost £2 million.
‘Being in that ward for three weeks at a stretch I was going stir crazy,’ says Anita, now 41, who lives in Upchurch, Kent, with husband Rob, 47, a civil engineer and their daughters Olivia, 13, and Eliza, now 11.
‘I was worried not just about Eliza but about my older daughter Olivia, at home without me, and about my husband. He’d had to take unpaid leave. He was bringing me sandwiches with money we could barely afford.
‘But then I realised just how lucky I really was, as doctors assured us Eliza would grow out of her breathing problems — and indeed she has. If it was this tough for us, how did families manage when they had a child in hospital battling cancer? Who paid the bills? Who looked after the other children?’
Two weeks after what would be Eliza’s last hospital admission, in July 2014, a friend tearfully revealed that her two-year- old daughter Ruby had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of neuroblastoma cancer affecting her stomach and bones.
‘The family were campaigning to send Ruby to America for drug treatment unavailable here,’ says Anita. ‘But I knew they would also need bags of financial and emotional support on a daily basis. I agreed to help.’
Anita threw herself into fundraising with a stream of events such as fun runs and charity football matches. In ten months, she helped raise a staggering £600,000 through a charity, Solving Kids’ Cancer, which held the funds until Ruby needed them.
‘I was so driven that I existed on a couple of hours’ sleep a night. I was determined that this little girl wasn’t going to die for lack of money,’ says Anita.
Her experience opened her eyes to the grim reality for families whose children have longterm illnesses, surrounded by friends and family who want to help but are often unable to provide the kind of support that’s really needed.
‘The film Frozen had just come out and Elsa dolls were changing hands for hundreds of pounds,’ says Anita. ‘Ruby had ten — all donated by wellwishers. Meanwhile, in the midst of their fundraising, the family had bailiffs knocking at the door. They could barely put petrol in the car to get to hospital or food on the table, and Ruby’s big brother needed sibling support.’
Much to everyone’s joy, Ruby recovered without needing treatment abroad as drugs available on the NHS began to work. Aged 11, she is now in remission. The remaining money raised is being used by Solving Kids’ Cancer to fund hospital treatment and trials for other children in the UK.
Anita’s success spurred her on to do yet more. ‘People have kind hearts. They just need to know how to help,’ she says.
In 2016 she registered My Shining Star, named in honour of her father Tony, who tragically died of a cardiac arrest in January 2014, aged just 53. ‘He died far too young. I like to think of him up there, shining down on us. I hope he’s proud of me.’
The charity has helped hundreds of families of children with cancer. ‘We provide help with everything from paying a fuel bill to buying a fridge to store medicine to providing therapy with a trained trauma counsellor and support with funeral expenses,’ says Anita. ‘We ask that children be under 18 and the family have a low income or less than £6,000 in savings.’
For the family of three-year-old Orlagh Keane, who was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma like Ruby, My Shining Star’s support has had a massive impact. Her parents, Tony and Tracey, first met Anita at Christmas 2019 when she arrived at the Royal Marsden, a specialist cancer hospital in London, with a team of helpers holding huge sacks of presents.
‘Every child could pick a gift not just for themselves but for their siblings,’ says Tony, who works in construction engineering but had to give up work while Orlagh was ill. ‘Sadly, she died in May 2020 aged three, so the soft toys she chose for her twin sister, Emilia, and brothers Isaac and Tom, mean the world to them. Emilia still takes her teddy bear to bed with her every night. It’s a little bit of Orlagh and gives her huge comfort.’
Other examples are myriad. There’s 16-year-old Fred, who has Down’s Syndrome and is mute. When he was diagnosed with cancer, his family worried that he had no way to express his fear and confusion, so My Shining Star paid for a play therapist.
THE charity has paid £250 a time for orthotic boots for a young girl whose muscles have been badly affected by her chemo treatment. Last Christmas it delivered 3,577 presents to 22 hospitals around Britain.
Although Anita is adamant hers is not a ‘ wish’ charity, she has managed to help dreams come true for dozens of dying children. Sixteen-year-old Chelsea football fan Clinton got to see a video message from his hero, Antonio Rudiger.
‘I don’t see any challenge as too big when it comes to a dying child,’ she says. ‘Some things are worth more than money.’
In 2019 Anita quit her job working in a nursery to run the charity full- time. ‘ What I went through with Eliza fundamentally changed me. I couldn’t forget what I’d seen,’ she says.
‘Fortunately, most people never get to experience what it’s like to have a sick child in hospital and would help parents less fortunate if they knew how. I’ve simply tapped into that wonderful generosity and kindness.’