Finlay and I were left speechless on Tuesday afternoon after a facetime call from an inspriational young lady. It was all very cloak and dagger from Val (our IT expert in school), she asked for a meeting with Finlay and myself as she had a phone call she needed us to be part of. We had no idea who the call was with, what it was about or why we had to be part of it but we are very glad she kept it a secret as it made the facetime call all the more memorable.

Caitlin Ronan is 16 and has a disability that has her confined to her bed for the majority of the day. She set up a gofundme page with the aim of raising enough money to purchase herself an Eyegaze computer. When her target was well and truly smashed but the donations were still coming in she turned her attention to changing the lives of others by gifting an Eyegaze system to those in need. Caitlin contacted Smartbox (the company who provide the Eyegaze) and asked them to nominate deserving people to receive her support and we are delighted to report that the Smartbox representative for Scotland(Graeme) nominated Finlay!!!

As you can imagine this was an incredibly humbling experience – Finlay was speechless and if i had spoken i would have broken down in tears! Having a complete stranger offer that level of support, the fact that Graeme nominated Finlay in the first place and the effort Val, Graeme and Caitlin put in to ensure the news was delivered in such a special way was incredibly touching.

Caitlin has committed to purchasing Finlay everything he needs to make the Eyegaze individual to him to encourage his independence. We will work closely with Graeme, Val and Caitlin to ensure Finlay gets the correct programmes to provide him with a system that will give him the same sense of freedom that Caitlin is now enjoying.

Click here to read Caitlin’s inspirational story, she is one in a million!