Your average fifth-grader doesn't spend their spare time going door-to-door rattling tins to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation, but Herron resident Ruby Jones does.
That's because lending a hand to the fight against blood cancer is a cause close to the heart for Ruby, who lost her mother, Penni, when she was just four years old.
It's important to me to fundraise to help out families going through the same thing my mum went through when I was little.
- Ruby Jones
Penni was originally diagnosed with a disorder that led to leukaemia of the blood in 2014, after feeling lethargic during routine physical activity led her to take a blood test.
She went to the hospital after a day at work, and from there Penni never came home.
"She kept saying she felt like she was running a marathon just going up a flight of stairs," her husband (and Ruby's father) Barrie said.
"From that blood test they put her straight into [the intensive care unit], and then they rushed her up to Fremantle to oncology there and basically six months and six days later, it took her."
It was a taxing time for the family, with Barrie making daily trips to the hospital while juggling the start of Ruby's schooling life.
Now, almost six years on from the tragedy that befell their family, Barrie said he was glad things had happened so swiftly.
"I look back now and I'm really glad it was so fast," he said.
"What the stem cell guys and doctors told us was this is something that should take 25 years to develop, and it happened in six months.
"At the time that's such a hard thing to take in because this is all happening so suddenly, and you have to absorb the shock.
"But I think about it these days and I'm glad it didn't drag on and affect her quality of life for that extended period of time."
Now, determined to not only preserve her mother's memory, but also honour it, nine-year-old Ruby will take part in the World's Greatest Shave sometime next month.
She's already smashed through her original fundraising goal of $1000, having raised just over $4600 as of Wednesday morning.
"It's important to me to fundraise to help out families going through the same thing my mum went through when I was little," Ruby said.
"I think three days in I passed my goal and I started screaming because I was so excited."
Ruby is currently on the lookout for local business to house one of her donation boxes at the front of their stores.
Any interested business can email barrie.jones@optusnet.com.au
Alternatively, you can donate directly to Ruby's fundraising page by clicking here.
Justin Rake
Sports journalist for the Mandurah Mail, Australian Community Media, Fairfax Media.
Sports journalist for the Mandurah Mail, Australian Community Media, Fairfax Media.
