A Burnham-On-Sea craft shop has donated a hand-made dress to a charity in memory of a local teenager who tragically died a year ago.
Material Needs in Burnham High Street has been displayed the hand made-dress in its shop window during the summer for an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme.
Shop owners Nick Hebborn and Nicky Garland have decided to donate the dress to a charity called SUDEP Action, supporting people with Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy, and it will be auctioned off at a charity fundraising ball next March.
The dress was collected from thre shop this week and modelled by Aimie Russell, the sister of Cheddar 17-year-old Johdi Russell, whose life was tragically claimed by Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy last autumn.
Material Needs’ Nick Hebborn said: “Nicky made the dress and it has attracted plenty of offers to buy it. But rather than sell it, Nicky decided that donating it to charity would be an appropriate gesture, especially as her son knew Johdi, who died so suddenly from a little-appreciated form of epilepsy.”
“Nicky also has a son with another form of epilepsy, so research is close to our hearts.”
Johdi died from a Sudden Unexpected Death In Epilepsy (SUDEP) episode on October 5th, 2017 at her home in Cheddar.
One in 10,000 people die of SUDEP a year which often happens during or following a seizure for no obvious reason.
