Northampton school hosts ‘Jesse Day’ fundraiser for ‘brave’ pupil who has rare cancer

A Northampton school hosted a day of activities to raise money for a pupil who has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

Jesse Mansfield was diagnosed at Northampton General Hospital with high risk Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML), which affects around 100 children a year, in August this year.

The 10-year-old has been in hospital, Nottingham and now Birmingham, since his diagnosis and has not been home since as doctors told him and his family that he was in the 'high risk category' of AML patients.

Jesse’s parents have set up an online fundraising page as if a bone marrow transplant is not possible, the family say their next best option is paying for chemotherapy treatment in the USA or the Far East, which is not available on the NHS and would cost circa £250,000. The family hopes Jesse will be able to have stem cell transplant in January and then they will see what the next steps are.

In a bid to support the fundraising, Jesse’s school - Weston Favell Primary School - held a ‘Jesse Day’ on Friday November 18.

Kelly Rich who is a teacher at the school said: “Children came to school in their pyjamas and took part in a dance-a-thon, where everyone took turns to ensure people were dancing from 9am until 3pm.

“Jesse chose lots of songs that we had on our dance a thon playlist. He also had a zoom call during the day with his classmates to see how things were going.

“At the end of the day there was a cake sale and staff took to the docks to get wet sponges thrown at them.”

The cake sale and wet sponge throwing raised £871.54. Children and staff also donated throughout the day for wearing pyjamas. Throughout the week, Miss Chambers also collected prizes and sold raffle tickets. The raffle raised £2,348.80. In total, the school raised a whopping £3,220.34.

Kelly added: “Jesse is a part of our school family (in year 6) and we will do all that we can to ensure that he receives the treatment that he needs. We can’t wait for him and his cheeky yet charming character to be back in our school.”

Donations to the online fundraiser, which has made more than £150,000 of the £250,000 target, can be made on JustGiving here.