Kate and Nicole Barrett, with guide dog Misty
This World Sight Day, your gift to CERA can make triple the difference to the future of eye research.
On October 8, CERA is running its inaugural Hope in Sight Giving Day. This 24-hour fundraising sprint aims to raise $150,000 for our promising gene therapy research to restore sight.
“This is unlike any appeal we’ve done before. For 24 hours only, all donations made to CERA will be tripled by our generous partners,” says Sarah Rainbird, Head of Philanthropy and Fundraising at CERA.
“Every dollar donated will be matched with an additional two dollars: one dollar from the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia and one dollar from the Centre for Eye Research Australia Foundation.”
“Our generous supporters already make an incredible difference to the lives of people with inherited eye diseases and this is an exciting opportunity to help their gift go even further,” she says.
All funds raised from the Hope in Sight Giving Day will go directly to our ground-breaking gene therapy research, bringing CERA closer to finding a cure for inherited eye diseases.
This research could be life-changing for sisters Kate and Nicole Barrett, who both have an inherited eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa. This condition causes progressive, irreversible vision loss and is currently untreatable.
Nicole’s vision is stable but she doesn’t know how her disease will progress in the future. “I just live each day and hope my vision stays the same” she says.
Kate began losing her sight at six and she now has guide dog ‘Misty’ to help navigate the world.
Her wish is simple: “I hope that my sight can stay where it is so I can see my daughters graduate and get married. That would be irreplaceable.”
Gene therapy is no longer the future of medicine; it is now part of the present-day clinical treatment toolkit. Advances in this area of research are accelerating rapidly.
The potential of gene therapy has propelled CERA into an exciting new phase of eye research. Now is a critical time to ramp up our efforts.
Life-changing breakthroughs for people like Kate and Nicole are within reach. You can help CERA bring them hope of a cure.
Please donate today so you can triple your impact and be included in the live tally on the day.
