By VICTORIA STONE-MEADOWS
STUDENTS at Belgrave South Primary School had a ‘Minion Mania’ themed dress-up day on Friday to raise money for genetic illness research.
Students were able to dress as ‘Minions’ from the Despicable Me movie franchise in exchange for a gold coin donation with the money raised from the day being donated to the Melbourne Genomics Health Alliance.
The idea was proposed by nine-year-old student Kai Malcolm, who wanted a way to help his baby cousin Isabelle, who has been diagnosed with Bloom’s Syndrome.
Kai said he wanted the money raised at school to go towards helping find a cure for the rare genetic illness his cousin would battle for her entire life.
“They have to look into it a lot and it takes a lot of money,” Kai said.
Kai shared his one-year-old cousin’s story with his class and said he wanted to find a way they could all help her.
Kai’s idea was then taken to the junior school council which, with the help of teacher Ronan Stafford, came up with the ‘Minion Mania’ dress-up fund-raising idea.
“Isabelle is quite small and so are minions,” Kai said.
“She weighed 1.4 kilos when she was born, and she is one year old now, but she still fits in clothes for eight-month-old babies.”
Kai’s seven-year-old sister Amaya said their cousin didn’t seem to grow much between their visits.
“She only grows little tiny bits,” she said.
Bloom’s syndrome is a rare genetic illness that affects the stability of a person’s chromosomes. This instability leads to short stature and immune system deficiencies that leave the individual at risk of various types of cancer, diabetes, respiratory issues and possible sterility.
The students raised a total of $404.05 on their fund-raising day which principal Kerryn Baillie said was really impressive.
“We are very happy with the result as we had 259 students participate in the dress-up,” she said.
