Travel rep Hailey Aspinall Ellis is bringing a ray of sunshine to our Happy House family after taking the plunge in a tank full of rays.
Hailey, from Blackpool, is working as a KidsWorld rep for Thomas Cook in the Majorcan resort of Alcudia, and saw the opportunity to swim with rays and raise money for her favourite charity too good to miss, so she set up a sponsored dive at the Palma Aquarium.
"After visiting there and seeing you can swim with stingrays, I was toying with the idea of doing a dive in the tank.
Although the stings have been taken out of these rays, I felt a bit too scared to swim alongside creature that are potentially deadly."
But Hailey who spent a month volunteering with our family last year changed her mind.
"I then thought of doing it as a sponsored event to raise money for the HH, and this gave me the motivation to be daring enough. Hailey spent an hour this week swimming with the rays and absolutely loved it. "It was totally awesome."
Hailey who did the dive with her friend Jamie Hodson hopes it will bring in £250 in sponsorship towards a £500 donation she aims to make to the Happy House when she goes back to volunteer next year and to visit her fmily's sponsor children, Charity and Stevie..
"Once it opened in March last year we sponsored a child Charity and I went out to volunteer. I fell in love with all the kids but specially with one little boy, Stevie, who arrived the same day as I did.
"He had lots of problems at first but now he's fine and thriving. We have been sponsoring him, too, ever since I came back."
Hailey's mum, Jackie Ellis-Fineman , who lives Blackpool, and her little sister Emma,10, are visiting the Happy House this month.
"They are off to see our extended family and I can't wait to go back next year to see how all the kids have grown both as individuals and as one big family."
To sponsor Hailey visit:www.justgiving.com/hailey1984
