A YELVERTON family are overjoyed that the garden they have been creating over the past year to make memories with their severely disabled daughter is finally complete.

Rebekah’s Garden is to be officially opened with a party for everyone who helped build the garden on her eighth birthday on June 17.

Mum Sarah said she and her husband Jonathan had been overwhelmed by all the support they had had to build the garden over the past year, from bakes donated by Yelverton’s Dartmoor Bakery to the many tradespeople and builders who gave materials and labour for free.

The garden is now ready for the family to enjoy with their daughter, who has chromosomal disorders Cri du Chat and Trisomy 10 syndrome, which have seen her have to be rushed to hospital with life-threatening bouts of pneumonia.

Sarah explained how the idea for the garden had come about after Rebekah was critically ill in hospital back in September 2020.

‘Rebekah was very very poorly and the consensus was that she wouldn’t make it to Christmas,’ said her mum. ‘ She did make it past Christmas, we decided that we need to create somewhere where we could make memories, where we could stay safe at home with her, so we started fundraising for the garden.’

She described how the fundraising campaign took off when Ali Mansfield from Horrabridge’s Love Your Neighbour helped fundraise in her village ­— where Rebekah’s siblings go to school — with cupcake sales. Soon offers of help were flying in, from the Mary Budding Trust in Tavistock who gave money to buy play equipment for all three children, to a charity which gave them the majority of the cost of the mobility hoist. Then there’s the family’s neighbour, a builder who donated his time, the local gardening company who gave them turf and another company who gave patio doors and windows.

From a starting point of making the garden level and wheelchair accessible, the Hunters have now also been able to competely transform the plot, creating a space which their other children Miriam, 11, and Joseph, four, can enjoy alongside Rebekah, who has a special mobility accessible swing. There’s also a hammock which has been incorporated into the design.

Sarah said: ‘It has taken us a year from where we started fundraising just for the garden. It has been overwhelming, totally overwhelming the amount of support we have had to make the garden and now it is finished, we spend more time in the garden when it is sunny than we do in the house. It has brought our family closer together.’

She said Rebekah, who suffers from epilepsy and pneumonia, had seen an improvement in her health recently, thanks to a simple device called a ‘coughphisis machine’ which has literally taught the little girl to cough, allowing mucus to be expelled rather than build up on her lungs. Nonetheless, her family are well aware that she still has a life-limiting condition, making the garden all the more precious.

Sarah explained that they wanted to invite everyone who had made the garden possible to the party. ‘I don’t think people get thanked enough,’ she said. ‘I want them to see what their contribution has achieved. I think it is important that they see how they have helped us. I am going to make a big cake!’