Football fundraiser for choroideremia research

Ten-year-old Tommy Salisbury and his friends at Our Lady of the Rosary School in South London raised £34.36 for Fight for Sight by organising a football fundraiser.

Tommy, Adam, George, Matthew and Aaron from class 5PH invited their classmates to take part in a sponsored football challenge to raise money for research into choroideremia – a rare eye condition that affects Tommy Salisbury.

Fight for Sight, the UK’s leading eye research charity, is currently funding research at Imperial College London looking at developing new treatments for choroideremia.

Annu Mayor, Director of Fundraising at Fight for Sight, was impressed by the creativity and organisation shown by the group : “We are really grateful to Tommy and his friends for their hard work organising the successful football fundraiser.  Fight for Sight rely on individual supporters like Tommy, Adam, George, Matthew and Aaron to fund our programme of vital eye research.”

The group were thrilled to raise money for research into the rare condition which affects their friend Tommy and are now thinking of other ways they can raise money for Fight for Sight.

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For more information call
Louise Elliott at Fight for Sight on 020 7929 7755
or email press@fightforsight.org.uk

Notes for Editors:

Fight for Sight is the UK’s leading charity dedicated to funding world-class research into the prevention and treatment of blindness and eye disease.

Since 1965, the charity has funded millions of pounds worth of research at leading universities and hospitals throughout the UK. Our major achievements in this time include:
•  saving the sight of thousands of  premature babies through understanding and controlling levels of oxygen delivery;
•  restoring sight by establishing the UK Corneal Transplant Service enabling over 45,000 corneal transplants to take place;
•  revolutionising the treatment for children with amblyopia (lazy eye);
•  bringing hope to children with inherited eye disease by helping fund the team responsible for the world’s first gene therapy clinical trial; and
• providing £1million for the research unit at the dedicated children’s eye centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Fight for Sight’s current research programme of over £5 million focuses on preventing and treating age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and cataract as well as the causes of childhood blindness.