Help Amber's dream of walking come true
Amber Porterfield has a dream – that one day she will be able to walk.
And now an entire community is getting behind a mammoth £60,000 fundraising effort to make sure the five-year-old's dream will become a reality.
The five-year-old has spastic diplegic cerebral palsy and uses a walking frame and a wheelchair to get about.
Her family have launched the appeal with the help of Pelsall Village School where she is a Year One pupil, to come up with the cash to cover the costs of a life-changing operation in the United States.
If it proves successful the treatment will help her to walk unaided.
The proceeds will also help the family to go with her to the Cerebral Palsy Centre at the St Louis Children's Hospital, Missouri, for the selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) operation.
She has limited mobility in her lower limbs because the signals from her brain to the spine do not work.
This major procedure on her spine would test the nerves with electrodes to find which is causing the stiffness in her lower limbs. This nerve would then be cut.
Her mother Susannah Kemp, aged 33, explains: "Amber was assessed last year to see whether she could have this operation here.
"Then in January she had a follow up consultation and we were told that she was suitable for the surgery.
"However, a few weeks later I found out that funding for this operation by the NHS was stopped in April last year. The hospital that she had been referred to was unable to help.
"There are other hospitals in the UK that offer it if you are self funded, but it's not as simple as ringing up and getting a booking. "We would have to start again and go to the back of the queue.
"That is why we are going to America. This is the centre that pioneered the SDR treatment. We have already raised £3,500 online and by people phoning the school which is brilliant.
"The school has been great. Amber is really popular there and the staff, children and the governors have been really supportive.
"We are hopeful of getting her to St Louis and that it will be successful. There is only one chance." Events will start on Good Friday with a charity night at the Saddlers Supporters Club, in Bescot Crescent, Walsall, featuring tribute acts, disco and a raffle.
Other events include a boxing night featuring Amber's dad Mark, aged 35.
Friends have pledged to run sponsored marathons, bike rides, a skydive and another charity night is booked at Pelsall Labour Club.
