Last updated at 12:53, Friday, 15 February 2013

A fund-rasing event next week will help a charity set up by a Cockermouth woman following the death of her six-year-old son.

COOKING UP CASH: Saskia Patrick, left, will hold a 24-hour bakeathon and run half a mile every hour to raise money for the Booktastic charity set up by friend Fiona Grove, right

Fiona Grove, 43, of Brandlingill, set up the charity Booktastic in 2010 after son Wilf died of a cancerous brain tumour.

Wilf had spent nine months in Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary.

Fiona set up Booktastic to provide reading material for youngsters on the ward.

Family friend Saskia Patrick, who taught Wilf during the last months of his life, will hold a 24-hour bake and run session next Saturday to raise money for the charity.

Saskia, 27, of Central Road, Dearham, who is a teacher at Wigton Infant School, aims to bake more than 550 cakes over 24 hours.

At the same time she will run half a mile every hour, as she is in training for the London Marathon in April.

Saskia said: “Selling cakes has probably been done a thousand times before but I wanted a challenge so baking them and running at the same time is something a bit different.

“I wanted to raise money for the charity and at the same time do something good for somebody else.

“I helped out Fiona a lot with her children and Wilf when he came home and that experience led me to apply to be a teacher.”

She will sell the cakes at an event on February 24 at 65 Fitz Road, Cockermouth, beginning at 1pm. She hopes to raise between £500 and £600.

Following her son’s death, Fiona and friends, who called themselves the Fells Angels, took part in the Bob Graham Round, which crosses 42 Lakeland peaks.

They raised £30,000 and donated money to the North of England Children’s Cancer Research, Crawford House, a hostel for parents of child patients staying at Newcastle and the Great North Air Ambulance.

She used the remaining money to help set up the charity. She bought library trollies and books to donate to the RVI and has since given hundreds more to the hospital.

She regularly takes some of Wilf’s friends to Hills book store in Workington to fill a shopping trolley with books for RVI youngsters.

Fiona said: “Some of the children are too ill to move so they have stories read to them.

“It has brought families together as parents can read stories to their children.

“I am delighted it has been such a success and that every child will now have the opportunity of a bedtime story.”

She also offers audio books by uploading them onto laptops, tablets and iPads.

Saskia has had donations of baking ingredients from business including the Trout Hotel, Laid with Love, Armathwaite Hall, the Co-op and Hoopers.

First published at 12:31, Friday, 15 February 2013
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk