Just trying to help Natalie and Evie And Gracie

Natalie is an incredible Mum, daughter, sister, friend, talented dancer, teacher, and devoted runner.

For the last 20 years, she’s taught ballet to children of all ages, pouring her love of dance into a new generation of young people and being an essential part of the Kensal Rise and Queens Park community. She’s taught us adults to dance and stay fit and raised vital money through her passion for the local primary school Princess Frederica.

In 2019, Nat found a lump in her breast and was diagnosed with breast cancer. A lumpectomy, double mastectomy, hysterectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy followed. Chemotherapy was gruelling, but when she was strong enough, she’d run to her appointments at The Royal Marsden. A courageous act to will her body to keep going when it desperately wanted to give up. We were all so happy when she was declared cancer free in 2022.

Despite regular MRI scans, she started feeling pain in her hip and her back at the beginning of this year. Following a scan she was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer, with a 9cm tumour in her liver and the cancer having metastasised in her bones and lungs.

Her cancer is aggressive, but she’s determined to live every single minute with positivity. Against all the odds (and to the utter disbelief of her friends and family!) she completed a 23km run in the Alps in June whilst receiving treatment for the cancer and with her body enduring aches, pains, and constant fatigue. And for as long as possible she has continued teaching her dance classes whilst also working with cancer patients supporting them with tailored exercise programmes and ballet classes. She was recognised for her work and received a special community engagement Teacher’s award from The Royal Academy of Dance. At the time she said that it was proof of using darkness for light and bad for good. To us, she’s the very embodiment of this philosophy.

But now she needs our help. An independent mum, she’s recently had to give up teaching as she needs to focus on staying well. This means she no longer has a regular income to support herself and her two daughters, Gracie and Evie. It’s an understatement to say she has a lot going on, but one thing the community that she’s supported in so many ways can do is help alleviate some of the concerns she will naturally have around money. We also want to make sure she is able to make as many memories as possible for her and her beautiful daughters.

We love this woman dearly. For her shining enthusiasm for life. For her complete devotion to her girls. For her selflessness in helping others before herself. For her refusal to feel sorry for herself and to take every day as a gift. Natalie reminds us that we all have a choice; a choice to believe in the positive even in the bleakest of times and to take pleasure in the smallest of things.

Please give what you can to help her when she needs it most. Every pound we raise will go straight to Nat, Evie and Gracie to help them live life to the full.

Thank-you.