Accrington Lions held a family fun day to celebrate World Down Syndrome Awareness Day.

The aim of the day was to raise awareness of the positive side of living with and loving babies, children and adults with Down Syndrome and to dispel some of the myths that are out there while raising funds.

Accrington Lions has two members who are related to baby Eva Lorente who plays the role of Minnie Blake in Hollyoaks, Lion/Nanna Caz & Lion/Nanna Sue.

Eva lives in Oswaldtwistle and attends daycare at both Nanna Caz’s and Cheeky Monkey’s both in Great Harwood so she is very much a part of Hyndburn.

Lion Caz Moreton who organised the event with Accrington Lions is also Eva’s main chaperone for Hollyoaks.

She said:

“March 21st is World Down Syndrome Day and was ideal as this year it fell on a Saturday, traditionally a family day.
The symbolism behind the 21st March is that people who have Down Syndrome have an extra third chromosome on what would be the twenty first pair of chromosomes so WDSD will always fall on that date.

"Baby Minnie is heavily involved in storylines on Hollyoaks at the moment and has been since she was born. The family feel that Hollyoaks are approaching the storylines in a very positive way and are themselves dispelling myths as they go along, the first one being that Down Syndrome babies are born to older mothers. The character of Maxine, Minnie’s mother is played by Nikki Sanderson who is only 31 and is the same age as Alana who is Eva’s mum.

"The experience for Eva has been a really positive one and it is like she has a second family at Lime Pictures with all the actors and the crew, particularly Nikki and the lovely Jeremy Sheffield who plays the role of her father – the evil Patrick Blake”.

When Pat & Debs the managers of Snuffy’s asked what they could do I asked if they  could  set the atmosphere for the fun day by decorating the room with lots of blue & yellow balloons which are the colours of Down Syndrome awareness and coincidently the colours for Lions Clubs International, and lots of butterflies which are also a symbol for Down Syndrome. Never known for doing things by halves, they went one stage further by completely repainting the inside of the pub blue and yellow, attaching butterfly decorations to the walls and blue lights around the top of the walls. The effect is fantastic.

We also wanted everyone to wear odd socks, the brighter the better again another symbol used to raise awareness.
Events on the day included a disco & karaoke, toy stall, sweet stall, craft stall, craft competitions, cake stall, raffle, “Minnie” auction, professional photographer and much more.

Ants Geraghty, Accrington Lions very own hairy biker from Brothers in Arms shaved his much loved and cared for beard off to raise funds and he raised £400 in sponsorship alone. He also brought along his Harley Davidson motorbike which was situated outside the pub for further photo opportunities.

Having finally collected all the pledges and sponsorship money the total raised came to just under £1500 so Accrington Lions made a donation to top the amount up to the £1500 and a cheque presentation was made recently at Snuffy's.

Following the success of the day the Lions have been asked by Snuffys and members of the public if they can add the event to their annual calendar of community events.

A massive thank you to everyone involved.