An amazing 6-year-old boy from Bradford, who was diagnosed with a rare heart condition called LEOPARD Syndrome, creatively started a fund raising campaign revolved around Christmas and singing to raise money for research, reported The Yorkshire Post.
Jaxon Green-Moore might be small 6-year-old boy, but his heart is BIG, and he surely has made it known. Spreading Christmas cheer this holiday season, Jaxon developed a really fun Christmas campaign that has garnered attention from many celebrities in the UK. The concept is to film yourself singing a Christmas song, donate via text and then challenge at least three other friends to do the same thing. It’s a popular social media campaign we’ve seen before and has proven it’s success. Maybe you remember the awesome ALS ice bucket challenge from years ago?
The popular Irish group called Boyzone, was the first to receive a nomination from Jaxon. They happily accepted his “challenge” and after that, the campaign spread like wild fire. Now huge UK celebrities like Aston Merrygold, Brian Conley, Alesha Dixon, Loose Women Linda Robson, Stacey Solomon and more joined in on his mission.
LEOPARD syndrome is a very rare heart condition that currently affects only 200 people in the UK, Jaxon being one of those. People with the disease experience hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — in other words, the muscles of the heart wall become enlarged and stiffen, which results in smaller pulmonary valves and blood can’t flood as well to the heart. Jaxon’s heart failed five times in just his first year of life. To read more about this rare disease, click here.
Jaxon’s parents, Heidi and Rob, expressed how difficult it was during that time. To put it frankly, they went to hell and back. Now they are learning to just take everything day by day. While there is no cure or true therapy for LEOPARD, they are determined to raise enough money for researchers to discover a treatment to change Jaxon’s life.
Every year 180 babies are born with some type of rare congenital heart disease, and the amazing Heart Research UK continues to push to make a change. All the money raised during this campaign will go directly to their organization. If you’d like to participate, post a video of yourself singing and texting SING to 70144 to donate, and then nominate at least three friends. You can also learn more about the organization here.
