A CAMPAIGN to build the world’s longest loom band in memory of a five-year-old boy is hitting the road.

Skye Hall from Abingdon died in August after battling a brain tumour for a year.

His parents Andrew and Sally and younger brother Jesse, three, launched the Loom to the Moon campaign to raise money for the charity named in his memory – Blue Skye Thinking.

They will travel from Aberdeen in Scotland back to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital via 12 other cities.

The first leg of the journey will be during half term, from February 16 to February 20.

As well as going around children’s cancer wards, the family will be visiting city centres to raise awareness.

Mrs Hall, 36, said: “We will fly to Aberdeen and work our way back down the country, visiting all the paediatric oncology hospitals and their city centres on our way back to Oxford.

“Zoom, the looming raccoon mascot, will be handing out free packets of loom bands and inviting children to join Skye and Jesse in making the world’s longest loom chain.”

The Loom to the Moon campaign has more than 14,500 'likes' on Facebook and the family has already received more than 15km of loom bands.

Originally due to finish in December, the scheme has now been extended to Easter due to popular demand.

Teen accessory shop Claire’s has donated thousands of loom bands for the tour. But the family are still looking for people to donate gifts to hand out on the wards, cheap accommodation and car hire.

Mrs Hall said: “We don’t want children in oncology wards to be left out of the world record.

“We know first-hand how boring it can be spending days in hospital so we wanted to take them an activity to pass some of the time. We also realised how much fun children from Oxfordshire have been having looming for Skye’s mission. We believe that loomers countrywide will join us if we can just spread the word.”

Mrs Hall added: “We’re funding this out of our own pockets. If any readers have any unwanted toys from Christmas we would be grateful for them to take to the wards.”

While Skye had cancer, he died from radio-chemo neurotoxicity, where healthy cells in his brain and spinal cord were damaged by the traditional treatments of radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Blue Skye Thinking funds research into alternative treatments to child cancers.

The charity now has £93,000 but wants to raise £120,000 by May to fund its own science researcher.

Mrs Hall said: “Every penny counts. We currently still need £25,000 to get our researcher in place so we are hoping that we get some generous donations between now and May.”

There is currently no existing record for a team-built loom band but any attempt would have to beat the current individual record length is 753.39 metres.

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