A MEIRIONNYDD community has banded together to raise thousands of pounds for a local three-year-old with a rare growth deficit condition and the charity which has supported her over the years.

Three-year-old Elena Kay has a condition known as Russell Silver Syndrome, a congenital condition which means Elena is shorter and slighter than her peers and has little interest in eating so is partially tube fed.

Elena, who lives in Dolgellau, also suffers with low blood sugars, and due to delayed gross motor development, is not yet able to stand of her own accord.

Despite her difficult start to life, Elena is a “happy, bubbly chatterbox” who “everyone falls in love with as soon as they meet”, according to mum Olwen Kay.

The family is fund-raising to say thank you to the Child Growth Foundation, a charity which supports people with rare growth conditions which had been “invaluable” to the Kay family since the three-year-old’s birth.

Next month five runners will take part in the Vitality London 10k for the charity, alongside a series of other charitable events, and have already smashed their £2,000 target.

One of ‘Team Elena’s’ most successful fund-raisers has been in the form of Smarties tubes.

An interested party is given a full tube of the confectionary and then asked to decorate the tube, fill it with 20p pieces and send it back to Elena’s mum.

More information can be found at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Team-Elena

See this week’s Meirionnydd edition of the Cambrian News for the full story