Kildare North Ógra Fianna Fáil to raise funds for ill child

Kildare North Ógra Fianna Fáil has announced a campaign to raise funds for a young girl from Donegal named Ellie McHugh.

The branch explained the story behind its new campaign on a recent social media post: "Ellie was diagnosed with spine cancer shortly after her first birthday in 2014: this was devastating news for her family."

"However, after three surgeries and treatments of chemotherapy, she is now cancer free and has been since the 28th of August 2017... this ordeal has left Ellie without most of her feeling and power in her legs, making it so she is confined to her wheelchair. She also requires assistance with basic everyday tasks."

The statement continued: "Ellie’s family are looking to enrol Ellie in an intensive therapy program in the NAPA centre in L.A. where Ellie would spend 3 weeks receiving state of the art treatment, with the aim of trying to get Ellie back walking again.

It further went on to explain that, during the buildup up to the NYC (which is being held in Donegal!) each member of the Ógra group, in addition to anyone who wants to get involved, will each walk or run the distance from the Dáil to Donegal to raise funds for Ellie: about 260k, or 520k up and back.

"We found out about Ellie through Susan Ní Miodchain of Donegal Ógra and would really like to thank Susan for giving us this idea," they explained: "it would be great to get as many people involved in this as possible! Also be sure to tell your family and friends about Ellie’s campaign and ask them to offer any support they can!"

In addition, Kildare North Ógra Fianna Fáil also setup a group using the JustMove app which will be used to track everyones progress over these next few months!

The GoFundMe campaign, along with additional information about Ellie McHugh, can be viewed here.