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About Us

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What We Do

The Holibobs Children’s Cancer Charity is dedicated to helping children diagnosed with Cancer or Leukaemia spend precious time together as a family through the provision of short breaks and holidays.


The charity was established in 2018 and is a cause very close to our hearts as we have experienced first-hand the heart ache and helplessness of having a child diagnosed with cancer. Our experiences and those of other families in the same circumstances have shown us how essential a holiday or break away from the hospital and treatment regimes can be. Time spent together as a family becomes crucial, every smile and moment of happiness precious, providing memories to treasure forever. 


The sad reality however is that families in these circumstances often struggle financially as one parent has to give up work to look after the child that is unwell. As a result, families are often not in the position to fund precious time away together when it’s needed the most. This is where Holibobs can help by providing these families with time away together without having to worry about the financial implications and stress of booking and organising a holiday. 

Our Motivation

The reason behind our beginning! Here are the stories of Harri and Darcy:

Darcy's Story

By Holibobs • 14 Jan, 2019
When we found out that our beautiful daughter had cancer, shortly before her 3rd birthday, our world quickly shrunk to very little beyond our home and the hospital. Our lives became a whirlwind of tests, scans, chemotherapy and surgery, as all of the aspects of everyday family life that we’d taken for granted until the terrifying day we received the diagnosis suddenly disappeared. Our priority immediately became caring for Darcy, everything else became secondary to this. We were so lucky that the cancer was caught early and treatment was successful but we needed to start rebuilding our life as a family again after the inevitable periods where the family was split by the time spent in hospital for treatment. We were offered the chance of a break at a caravan owned by a local cancer charity, which allowed us to have a few days away together as a family. The whole summer had been spent in and out of hospital, meaning that the children had both missed out on all the holidays and other fun that their friends were having, so this was a wonderful opportunity for them to get something back. It is almost impossible to put into words how special this time was for us all and how grateful we were to have it. After months of feeling trapped in our house or separated, due to time spent in hospital wards, just to be able to spend time together as a family was an amazing feeling. Darcy had a Hickman line fitted during treatment through which she had her chemotherapy drugs, which meant that she could not go swimming, something she really loved to do before her illness. One of our happiest memories of the holiday was seeing the look of pure joy on her face being back in a pool, splashing around with her brother. We were very aware of the huge impact of his sisters illness on our son too and how important it was for them both to have time together to play and have fun, which they really got to do when we were away. Time away together gave us a chance to be a normal family again, something we were so grateful for. We have some truly wonderful memories of this time, which we will all cherish for the rest of our lives.

Harri's Story

By Holibobs • 09 Jan, 2019
Harri was just 4 years old when he was diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma in November 2014. It was whilst getting him changed into his pyjamas, watching Children In Need that we felt a small lump on Harri’s forearm. At the time we never imagined that it would be anything serious and left the first appointment in disbelief and complete shock. Within days Harri was having the full range of scans and following a biopsy a couple of weeks later our worst possible fears were confirmed. Within no time at all we found ourselves thrust into a very frightening world of treatment plans, cycles of medicine and having to find ways of living with awful side effects and protecting Harri as much as possible from the increased risk of infection. Nothing at all could have prepared us! Over the last four years Harri has endured various forms of treatment and hospital procedures that have been so terribly hard on him and totally heart breaking for us. He has missed out on so much that is everyday and normal but his courage, resilience and cheeky personality shines through always. He has the most amazing imagination and can quite literally make a game out of anything. He is strong willed and determined and has many, many loves from his big sister and best friends to trains, football, David Attenborough and Harry Potter. He is quite simply our superhero! When Harri was asked what holidays meant to him he said that they made him feel free and we can’t think of a better description. Freedom from hospital, freedom from medicine and the sickness it brings, freedom from horrible procedures allowing him the time to be the child he should be and being given the opportunity to spend time away having fun and being normal means the world to him.

Want to get Involved?

Find out more about how you can get involved with Holibobs Children’s Cancer Charity and make a real difference to a desperately ill child

Holibobs Trustees

The Holibobs Trustees are Lee and Liz Gillen and Ian and Ruth Stone, the parents of Harri and Darcy. We are all dedicated to helping families affected by childhood cancer, just like our families have been and know how important holiday’s and breaks away from treatment can be. Between us we have many years of fundraising experience as well as experience in running businesses and events. We are all fully committed to organising as many holidays for our families as possible. 

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