NOT many people have managed to build something that can reach the moon.
But one family's campaign to build the world's longest Loom Band in memory of their five-year-old son has broken the world record - and could reach the earth's very own satellite.
Skye Hall from Abingdon died in August last year after battling a brain tumour.
His parents Andrew, Sally and younger brother Jesse, three, launched the Loom to the Moon campaign to raise money for the Blue Skye Thinking - charity made in his memory.
Now after months of fundraising and travelling round the country, the family has broken the world record for the largest Loom Band in history.
Skye’s mum, Sally said: “After Skye died, Jesse took up the mantle on his behalf along with children from across the world that sent in their loom bands to help.
"These include children on cancer wards across the UK which the family visited to hand out free loom bands so that this one giant chain contains the looms of those children that the money the campaign has raised will be benefitting.
“Today is a bittersweet celebration for us. It is wonderful to have finally reached this achievement for Skye, we just wish he was here with us to see it happen. As any parent can imagine, every single day is a struggle without him but knowing how many children who are currently undergoing cancer treatment right now, who have contributed to Loom to the Moon has kept us going
"We had a physicist calculate that the force generated from these loom bands could catapult Skye's first loom band in to space.”
The previous world record for the longest Loom Band was 1,473.90m but Skye’s band smashed that by 8.5 times over with a whopping 12, 529.40m - this has been verified by the Guinness book of Records as the Longest Loom Band Bracelet.
The Loom Bands were laid out at Abingdon Business Park in Oxford and will remain there for seven days so that the general public can view them.
The idea came when Skye was making loom bands while receiving treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for hours at a time.
The staff at the treatment centre jokes that they were sending him to the moon every time they locked the door and counted down for the pressurisation to start.
And from there Mrs Hall decided to start the Loom to Moon campaign, which has more than 14,000 likes on Facebook.
Dozens of schools across the county supplied Loom Bands to the world record bid.
While Skye has cancer, he died from radio-chemo neurotoxicity, where healthy cells in his brain and spinal cord were damaged by the traditional treatments of radiation therapy and chemotherapy.
As well as the world record title, the campaign has raised £200,000 which will go towards Blue Skye Thinking the charity named after Skye set up by Sally and her husband Andrew, that supports research into childhood brain tumours.
Last week the Oxford Mail reported how the family started to a project where people can scrap their old cars to raise funds for the cause.
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