Jacqueline Fanchini (Reporter)A BRAVE five-year-old cancer victim passed away this morning just days after he was supposed to go on his dream holiday to Paris.
Despite their grief, Alex Bennett-Van’t Noordende’s parents have decided to fulfil his dream through children that are suffering a similar fate.
Dutch father Arjan Van’t Noordende, 39, and British mother, Michelle Bennett, 40, had sent out a crowd-funding appeal at the beginning of the month to grant their son’s wish to go to visit the Eiffel Tower and Disneyland Paris.
Some of the donations made will now go towards funeral costs with the remainder of the money going to the AVOI charity which aims to raise €50,000 to send a group of children to Disneyland Paris.
“It will be donated in memory of Alex to a charity called “AVOI”, which has volunteers who spend several hours twice every day with children like Alex in Materno-Infantil in Malaga,” Arjan told the Olive Press.
Marbella-born Alex – who has been battling a sarcoma type of cancer called RMS – took a turn for the worst last week after a chemotherapy session took a heavy toll on him and had since then been on morphine and unable to eat.
In the last few days his condition worsened dramatically, leading to his passing.
Last week Arjan told the Olive Press that he would happily pursue alternative treatment for Alex but would not want to see him suffer.
“We have to be careful not to grant us our wish of keeping our son alive if it were to cause him pain,” said Arjan.
Today Arjan told of his son’s passing ‘with great sadness, though with great relief that Alex is no longer in any pain’.
Alex will be buried Sunday October 19 in the Cemetario Municipal in Coin around noon.
View the initial story here.
