It’s heart-warming to hear when businesses in the community get together to help a great and worthy cause. This is what happened on Oct. 21st when The Language Tree and Alcoholum joined forces to host and support a Charity Bridge Tournament organized by the Costa Bridge Club. More details will follow shortly about the heart-crushing story behind the fundraising event. First, I want to give credit to these two neighbouring businesses for joining forces and tell you a little about them if you haven’t heard of them before.
The Language Tree: If you are looking to learn or improve your Spanish or English skills, the Language Tree is the school for you. The school opened in August 2008 and has just begun its second academic year. The highly qualified instructors offer classes every day, except weekends, for all ages and levels. The school also offers the preparation courses for Cambridge ESOL exams. Currently they have a waiting list for other languages, and these will start up when there is enough interest. They are located at Edificio Delfin local 7, Paseo de Cotobro, Almuñécar. Tel. 958 882 196, e-mail: thelanguagetree@gmail.com www.thelanguagetree.es
Back to the most import part, namely the Charity Bridge Tournament and the cause of the fundraiser:
I stopped by at the event and had a chat with Julia Asbury, owner of the Language Tree, and David Leake from the Costa Bridge Club. They told me the very sad story of 3-year-old Fletcher Michael Falvey, who was diagnosed with an aggressive, malignant, brain tumour (an anaplastic ependymoma) in August. On Aug. 14th he underwent 7 hours of brain surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible. However, this just buys him time, as it will grow again. What he needs now is radiotherapy to deal with the remainder. Conventional radiotherapy is not an option for him as it is can be very damaging to a young brain – there are just too many side effects that could cause Fletcher problems for years to come.
For, this reason, he and his partents have had to go to America where he is currently undergoing a new and safer treatment called proton therapy, which in not available here in Europe. Unfortunately, as this treatment is relatively new, it is very expensive and will cost about 150.000 E. This is the very reason why the Costa Bridge Club organized the Charity Bridge Tournament. Julia from The Language Tree supported the event by generously donating her language school premises so the tournament could take place there. Pia Leissner from Alcoholum sponsored wine during the tournament itself and futhermore dotated 2 boxes of their Chilean Viña Maipo Bag-in-Box wines for their raffel. All the proceeds go directly in aid of Fletcher’s cause. After the tournament was finished, Alcoholum opened it´s doors to 32 players for wine-tasting.
Fletcher´s story has touched people´s heart and if you want to follow his story, he has an online diary at www.friendsoffletcher.com. If you would like to contribute with a donation (big or small) or organize your own fundraiser to help him please contact: friendsoffletcher@gmail.com
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