A CHARITY fund-raising business set up by a teenage cancer sufferer from Bromsberrow Heath, near Malvern, has raised £20,000 in less than two years.

Rosie Kilburn, aged 19, founded the Knock-On Effect, which sells a range of T-shirts and other items including jewellery, bags and tea towels, in July 2009.

Since then it has made donations of £1,000 to five different charities – the Rainbow Trust, CLIC Sargent, Little Princess Trust, the Willow Foundation and Teenage Cancer Trust.

“If you include the donations and the money that we have in stock then we have made about £20,000 since starting in July 2009,” said Rosie.

She also has two more donations coming up shortly. The first is for Maggies Centre in Cheltenham, which opened in October, and will come thanks to a “zumbathon” Rosie is organising with instructor Natalie Burton.

Zumba is a Latin-inspired dance workout. The event will run from 5pm-8pm at GL1 Leisure Centre, in Gloucester, on Saturday, May 28.

The entry fee is £6.50, which includes a free Knock-On Effect T-shirt, and Rosie is asking participants to see if they can raise extra donations from their friends and family to help out the cause.

Rosie’s other forthcoming donation is to Hope Support Services, based in Ross-on-Wye.

This is an organisation that she is particularly excited to support.

“They are the exact fit of the charity that the Knock-On Effect was set up to help,” she said. “They provide support for the people who have a family member that has cancer, offering drop-in sessions and workshop days.”

Rosie had hepatocellular fibrolamellar carcinoma, a rare form of liver cancer, diagnosed in February 2008.

Since then she has had two liver resections, a lung biopsy, an ablation, a right hemicolectomy, a six-course round of chemotherapy and three transarterial chemoembolisations – the most recent late last summer.

She is now taking oral chemotherapy pills and awaiting her next scan in six weeks.

“Hopefully that will reveal that everything is stable and not growing much,” she said. “But if ever the pills stop working there are still plenty of other options.”

For information on the zumbathon, visit theknockoneffect.wordpress.com.