Yahoo News Comedian Jason Manford helps dying mother pay off her mortgage
Comedian Jason Manford has helped a dying woman boost her fundraising campaign to pay off her mortgage to help her kids.
Rachel Clements, 30, has a terminal lung condition, but wants to make sure her three children Ivan, one, Louis, three, and Chloe, 12, will have a roof over their heads when she is gone.
Manford, 38, shared her Just Giving campaign to raise £119,000 to pay off her mortgage with members of his Facebook fan page to become and called upon ‘Charity Ninjas’ to help her.
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The former host of The One Show wrote: “Heres a mad idea. Facebook tells me they there are over 1m active fans on my Facebook page. That’s over 1m potential or current actual #CharityNinjas. Just a million of them waking around leading normal lives, nobody would ever suspect the noble work they do in the shadows.
“So only one this week and it is a super mum, Rachel, who has a number of awful things wrong with her. Yet whose only wish in the frankly awful timing of her imminent passing, now she’s in palliative care, is what any of us would want. Our children to feel safe and secure when we’re no longer around.”
He added: “So you’ll miss a fancy coffee this week or maybe don’t get a pudding one night! That’s all it takes to change a family’s life, to good, for good!”
The 30-year-old mother-of-three has suffered from the rare and incurable lung disease Pulmonary Fibrosis since she was 15. She has less than a quarter of her lung capacity, and is entirely oxygen dependent.
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She also suffers Crohn’s disease, which has damaged her bowels.
One week after Manford’s initial post £77,000 has been donated to Clements’ fund, putting her just £13,000 off her target.
This headline kinda makes it sound like I paid this myself. I did not. I made a donation but so did over 5k people who follow. It was a lovely thing, all I did was help facilitate it.
Thoughts are with Rachel & her family and I hope she finds peace in the kindness of others ❤️ https://t.co/2L6vqIH01T— Jason Manford (@JasonManford) July 4, 2019
Manford congratulated his followers on Facebook, saying: “Great work... I’m in awe of you all.”
Clements has said she was “lost for words” by the generosity she has received.
