Holbeach Twitch streamer organises international fundraising event in memory of ‘beloved’ mum

A ‘heartbroken’ son is on target to raise more than £3,000 for charity in memory of his ‘beloved’ mum.

Kyle Olley, of Holbeach, set up the fundraising event ‘Chasing Butterflies: Fight Against Cancer’ with his dad Neil as a way to distract themselves from a period of grief in the family.

The 23-year-old wanted to do something in honour of his mum, Amanda, who died in February 2023, after losing her battle with oesophageal cancer.

As a result of their loss, Kyle and his dad built a community on the online streaming platform Twitch last year and hosted their first fundraising event for a charity close to their heart.

Kyle said: “Unfortunately cancer is a disease which will affect someone you know at some point in your life, whether that's a close family member, a friend, colleague, teacher or even a pet, and for me, it was my beloved mum.

“Not only is it beyond heartbreaking to lose someone, but having to watch them struggle with chemotherapy and deteriorate in front of your eyes feels like a part of you is dying with them.

“It also has such an intense impact on your mental health.

“We started Chasing Butterflies so we could raise as much money as we could for charity. We've been in the situation where we've lost someone to cancer and we wouldn't wish that on anyone else.”

The father and son duo decided to host a second event throughout May to continue fundraising for Macmillian Cancer Support.

Kyle, who is also a singer/songwriter and music producer, has previously performed at Holbeach Music and Beer Festival.

A community of Twitch streamers from across the world have supported the fundraiser by live-streaming music and gaming content every day from 12pm until May 30.

Some of the creators involved include Twitch users ‘TobyEllisSongwriter’, ‘Kainosh’, ‘EmmaMcGann’,’FirestoneRocksDrums’ and lots more.

Due to the positive response so far, Kyle decided to increase his original target of £2,000 to £3,000. He said: “To say we are blown away by the generosity of our community is an understatement.

“We had participants who managed to raise £2,000 by day three of our event so we had to increase our goal – compared to last year those numbers are astronomical.”

The live streaming platform allows content creators to interact with their community in real time and in 2024 Chasing Butterflies raised £1,750 within five days of their two week-long fundraiser.

Kyle added: “It's our goal as we grow our event year by year to have hundreds of fundraisers involved and we hope to raise tens of thousands each year.”

If you would like to visit the Twitch channel click here.