A THURROCK mum has expressed her thanks to local communities who have supported her plea to help a charity supporting children and parents.

More than £1,000 has been raised in the wake of local mum Abigail Everett's social media appeal on Facebook.

Abigail, who runs the Sweet Tasty Treats shop in Stanford-le-Hope, highlighted the story of her son Albie, who was born with a hip disnormality following a breech birth.

Abigail says: "Albie was breech all throughout my pregnancy so when he was born we had to go for an ultrasound to check his hips. They were not in their socket and after numerous scans it was compulsory for him to go in a Pavlik harness.

"Albie has had to be in his harness for six weeks and is due to come off on 31 October.

"When the hospital put the brace on him we asked what clothes we could put him in and they explained you had to have specialist clothes. They had a very sparse selection of clothing and explained they don't have any funding to purchase clothing and sometimes have to end up sending babies home in towels as they cannot accommodate them.

"The clothing is about £15 for two sleep suits so it's not the cheapest.

"Fortunately, we have a lot of family support and were able to buy Albie the clothing he needed but others are not in the same position.

"I decided to run a raffle through my business, Sweet Tasty Treats in the hope of raising around £100 to buy some clothes.

"Once the raffle had launched it went a bit crazy! Customers, friends and family were so generous and we hit the £100 target in around 10 minutes. The raffle was open for two weeks and in this time we managed to raise just over £1,000 which has left me speechless.

"I am so grateful for everyone who entered the raffle and donated.

"With this money we were able to buy 68 packets of sleepsuits which is 136 individual sleep suits. We will be giving these to the hospital when we go for our final appointment."