GIVE Healesville sisters Eadie and Scarlett a cookbook and a bowl and you would think they didn’t have a worry in the world.
The reality is very different – not only for them, but for their mum Sally Gales, dad Anthony Smith and and for their community of friends and supporters.
Eadie, 8, had surgery for a second rare brain tumour on 15 November and is about to start what is expected to be 12 months of chemo and radiotherapy.
The little girl, whose great joy in life is watching Master Chef and playing with six-year-old Scarlett, survived the removal of an atypical teratoid rhaddoid tumour when she was two.
It was a gruelling time both emotionally and financially and left both parents, now separated, without any of the financial resources they relied on throughout their first ordeal.
For Sally as a single mum with a mortgage the road ahead is particularly daunting, and that’s where friends and community have stepped up to the mark.
With Eadie in hospital and Scarlett needing her mum more than ever, she has given up her job to be with the girls.
Close friend Leah Ledingham, who works at Clarence in Healesville’s main street, said she couldn’t let Sally and the girls battle through alone.
The response to her call to arms was overwhelming.
With friends from nearby shops they have launched the Scarlett for Eadie Foundation to raise money to help the family financially, but also to empower Scarlett to help Eadie, and to recognise the effect the illness, and the separation, will have on a loving little sister.
“Your heart just aches for them, for what they are going through and for what they are facing over the next year,” Leah said.
The day to day cost of having a critically ill child is unending with the loss of income, the cost of petrol, parking and food when you are away from home for up to six days a week.
“The reality for Sally was that she was looking at putting the house on the market, and there are all the other things like organising school pick-ups, cooking meals and just getting some rest,” she said.
“Sally is such a giver herself, she is always thinking of others, it just feels right that we should help as a community.”
For Sally the knowledge that she has friends looking out for her and the girls means she can focus on the girls.
“It really takes the pressure of me so I can look after both the girls and not have to stress about paperwork for bills, cleaning, having meals prepared, and even Christmas shopping,” she said.
The fund-raising will start this week with every shop in Healesville displaying a “Scarlett for Eadie” tin, decorated with Eadie’s favourite owls and butterflies.
“We know people want to help and this is one way they can do it, by just giving whatever loose change they have, or whatever they can afford,” Leah said.
The foundation’s team is working behind the scenes on other ways to support the family and plan an auction early next year.
Phone Leah or Bobby on 5962 4226 or Jeanette on 5962 6293 if you would like to help the Scarlett for Eadie Foundation.
