Over 30 celebrities from the worlds of sport, film, fashion and music have drawn pictures of bones to be auctioned on eBay for charity.
Swindon resident Mark Heasman is auctioning the drawings to raise money for Anthony Nolan. He was inspired to support the charity after his best friend died of leukaemia.
Mark explains, ‘A few years ago, my best mate Jamie passed away from leukaemia aged 23. After he died we found that he had left a note asking his friends and family to support the amazing work that Anthony Nolan do.
‘I’ve done running events before and am running the Great North Run for Anthony Nolan later in the year. All of my friends have got tired of me asking them for money, so I needed to come up with a new way to fundraise. I never thought that I would get this level of response from the celebrities though!’
The response has been overwhelming and Mark has received over 30 bone drawings back from high profile celebrities.
Olympian Mo Farah drew a basic bone with his signature, while Sir Steven Redgrave drew a picture of stickmen rowing in a bone.
Joanna Lumley drew a shaded bone with the caption ‘a mystery bone diagnosed by Joanna Lumley’. She also told Mark that she was one of the first people to join the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register when it was set up by Anthony’s mother, Shirley Nolan, in 1974.
Chris Martin drew a ‘coldplay’ bone and Susan Boyle has drawn a ‘funny bone’.
Emma Thompson wrote on hers ‘my nickname is bone’ while Gordon Ramsay captioned his drawing ‘give the cook a bone’.
The most imaginative contributions came from Adam Ant, who drew a love-heart-shaped bone, and Nick Frost, who drew a cowboy bone.
Commenting on the drawings, Mark says, ‘Because I'm a huge fan of their work, my favourite has to be the Chapman Brothers’ piece - I thought I'd have to be a millionaire before I got to handle something that special! Joanna Lumley’s bone and Sir Steve Redgrave's rowing bone are brilliant too!’
Jayne Cromwell, Head of Regional Fundraising at Anthony Nolan, says ‘This is incredibly innovative fundraising project – we’ve never seen anything quite like it. It costs £100 to recruit each potential donor on to the bone marrow register, so fundraising makes a huge difference to our work. The more money we can fundraise, the more matches we can make, and the more lives we can save.’
The eBay auction will launch at 9pm on 21st February and will end on Sunday 3 March at 9pm.
You can follow the progress of the bones on twitter and facebook.
For press enquiries, please contact Amy Evans on 0207 424 6645 or amy.evans@anthonynolan.org.
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