Worcester mum-of-two aiming to help others living with MND like her through launch of charity
Stacy Bozward was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) last summer and has now set-up a charity which will aim to help other families living with MND
A Worcestershire mum has vowed to "keep banging the drum" to raise more awareness of Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and hopes a new charity in her name can provide support to families who are living with it.
Mum-of-two Stacy Bozward was diagnosed with MND last summer after initially starting with symptoms such as a sore neck and not being able to lift her arms above her head around July 2024.
Since then, she and her family have been working to fundraise for research into finding a cure and MND charities, holding a Kick for a Cure celebrity charity football match at Sixways at the end of June and a 26-mile charity walk taking place back in August.
Now, she's officially launched the charity called Stacy's Kick for a Cure to help other people with MND, and has said she will keep doing what she can to bring more awareness to it.
"I'm going to keep banging that drum until I can't anymore," she said.
"The awareness is so important and there's still people out there that don't know what MND is and I find that crazy.
"It’s just so important that we're going to run this charity to help people with MND and hopefully just really make a difference in their lives."
Her husband Barry added: "The aim is to simply help people with MND.
"We were very lucky to have the Matt Gallagher Foundation help us and I think that's what sparked Stacy's dream of getting her own charity in her name.
"It’s so anybody suffering with MND, any family member, can get in touch and we can try and help them as best we can."
Following the launch, the Worcester Physiotherapy Clinic has decided to take on a mammoth challenge of attempting to cover 1,500km this month through the likes of running and walking to fundraise for them.
Physiotherapist Charli Browning said they originally met Stacy and Barry when Stacy first came to them with some neck pain.
She said raising more awareness of MND is vital, and they're doing all they can to make sure they hit their distance.
"We've all adopted different strategies, I’ve chosen to go like on a few longer runs in the week so I can have some rest days, some people are doing a run every day, but slightly shorter," she said.
"We've got some people that are running up and down the stairs in between patients or running on the treadmill in between patients, so whatever way it can get done, it's getting done."