Amazing Garden thanks to National Lottery
The Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund, is today celebrating after being awarded almost £10,000 in National Lottery funding to support its work to provide a holiday in the new Eilidh Brown Holiday Home for children living with/ survived cancer The charity, based in Thornhill just outside of Stirling will use the cash to complete the garden project before the house is officially opened to welcome the first family
Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund has been running since 2011 and is staffed mainly by 4 volunteers. It was founded by Gordon and Nicole Brown after their daughter Eilidh passed away from cancer in March 2010. It was Eilidh’s dream that she would like to build a holiday home for children living with cancer so they could spend quality time with their parents, siblings and wider family to reconnect after the trauma of cancer treatment. Gordon and Nicole have worked tirelessly since then to raise funds to build this home on the outskirts of Thornhill. The home had been planned to be finished and opened by early summer 2020 but due to the covid pandemic the build had to be put on hold. It has started again and they hope to have the house and garden completed by Autumn ready to welcome the first family in early 2021.
The home will offer much needed quality time for families to connect and spend time together after the grueling treatment that the child has had to endure. Cancer does not just affect the child going through it but the whole family. Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund will offer the families 1 week’s holiday in this fantastic new home and garden.
The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will allow the garden project to be completed. We have a local company on standby to start the garden project with help from many volunteers in the community to maintain it.
Gordon Brown, founder of The Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund, says: “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way. Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to press on with our plans to finish the house and garden and be ready to welcome the first family in early 2021. This is so important because it helps both the children and the parents to build stronger relationships with each other spend quality time together away from the pressures of a hospital environment and have fun together as a family.
