Peterborough girl, 10, raises close to £1,500 for dementia charity in support of grandad

A 10-year-old girl from a village near Peterborough has raised nearly £1,500 for Parkinson’s UK through a variety of fundraising challenges.

Frankie Dalton from Folksworth decided to fundraise for the dementia charity because her grandad is living with the condition.

“I want to raise money for Parkinson’s as my grandad suffers from it,” she said. “I’d like to raise money to help find a cure.”

To date, the youngster has raised £1,430.

Frankie has already completed one fund-raising event, a 5km Mission: Obstacle Dash mud run at Abbots Ripton on May 7.

“I wanted to do the 5k mud run to make it more of a challenge in the hope that people would sponsor me more,” she said.

Her next challenge will be a sponsored silence on Tuesday May 30.

“My grandad struggles to speak sometimes,” she explained: “I think doing a sponsored silence will help me to understand how hard it is for him.”

Parkinson’s is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world. It affects around 145,000 people in the UK and every hour two more people are diagnosed. There is, at present, no cure.

Kirsty Berrigan and Rebecca Landolt are the heads of regional fundraising at Parkinson’s UK. They said they are “so grateful to Frankie for fundraising for Parkinson’s UK.”

“With more than 40 potential symptoms, Parkinson’s can devastate lives,” they said. “We’ve made huge breakthroughs in the last 50 years, but there is still no cure and current treatments are not good enough.”

Kirsty and Rebecca were optimistic that Frankie’s efforts might galvanise others in our region to follow suit:

“We hope that this fundraising challenge inspires you to get involved with Parkinson’s UK,” they said.

“There are lots of ways for you to get involved and support us - from volunteering at an event, to campaigning for better services.”

“Without the generosity of people like you, our work would not be possible."Anybody who would like to sponsor Frankie in her efforts can do so by visiting her JustGiving page.