The Kitchen Group is donating the proceeds from selling their old kitchen displays to pay for a cancer treatment for three-year-old Jacob.
Liam Hopper, managing director of The Kitchen Group, has been friends with Jacob’s father, Gary Batchelor, since they were children and wanted to help Jacob in any way he could.
The Batchelor family has started a campaign on the website Solving Kid’s Cancer in order to help fund the treatment. Jacob was diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma – an aggressive childhood cancer that has a 40% to 50% chance of long-term survival. Jacob has undergone intense chemotherapy at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Jacob has been in treatment for eight months and his mother Noor Batchelor said: “We genuinely thought it was a stomach bug. Never did we ever think we’d be told they could feel a mass. Our world collapsed around us and there was nothing we could do to stop it.”
“Despite all that he’s been through, Jacob’s wicked sense of humour is still there and that’s what gets us through some of our darkest days.”
Hopper said: “We are always replacing displays and more so now to keep up with new German trends. Investment in your showrooms is vital to succeed and break the back of Covid. But the money being generated now has a new cause, focus and goal – to help Jacob at all costs.”
The Kitchen Group, which owns five Leicht Kitchen Design Centres in London, Kent and Kendal, will donate displays from the Battersea and Tunbridge Wells showrooms.
The displays will be sold through the Used Kitchen Exchange and Helen Lord, founder and director of the company, has waived the listing fee to make sure all profits go to Jacob’s treatment.
Speaking about the support he received from Lord and the UKE, Hopper said: “It’s brilliant, and there is no better platform than the UKE for ex-displays. Helen has a fantastic heart, having children herself. It’s a pain only a parent truly realises when you are dealing with children.
“I have a healthy daughter Jacob’s age and it brings reality home how lucky we are. I now call upon the industry to help donate £10 for this little solider, so he doesn’t have to endure more pain and we can help his parents pay for the life-saving treatment Jacob deserves.”