Chesterfield girl's lucky guess rewards charity that helped her family

Mya Richards, of Newbold, gave the closest answer which resulted in £447.50 going to Action for Children, at her request, and the other half going to Chesterfield’s Crooked Spire Church.

The competition formed part of the annual Christmas tree festival at Chesterfield’s famous church in which Start Financial Planning participated for the first time. Emma Thomas, who works at the firm, suggested that her uncle Lee Bestall, who runs a landscape design business, build the tree and he was helped to do so by his wife Paula.

Rachael Taylor, director of Start Financial Planning based at Dunston Innovation Centre, said: “It’s a time for giving so we wanted to give something back to Chesterfield. Our Christmas tree was made up using fake £5 notes and we asked people to guess the total amount of money on the tree. We said we would donate half of the total amount on the tree back to the Crooked Spire and then the other half to a local charity of their choice.

" It makes us happy that a little girl wanted to do it and her mum said that she was elated when she realised that she had won.”

Mya, who is a pupil at Outwood Academy in Newbold, and her mum, Suzanne Hollis have been visiting the festival for nine years. They were attracted in the first year to look at a tree that Suzanne’s mother, Avril Barlow, had helped decorate when she was a member of a stroke group that met at St Thomas Church.

Suzanne, 45, said: “It’s so lovely to see all the work and effort that people have put in.”

This year Mya and Suzanne chose a very wet, cold day to call in at the festival. Suzanne said her daughter needed no help in guessing the total amount of fake fivers decorating the tree and came within 45 of the correct number.

Mya chose Action for Children as the charity to benefit from her win because of the help they gave her before she was diagnosed with autism.

Her mum said: “I’d always known that there was something a little bit different about her – if we went down the street and we went the wrong way to what she was used to it would stress her out. When the fire brigade came to her school, she got really upset and uncomfortable and the school had to ring me.”

Mya's severe anxiety made her mum take her to the doctor when she was six and she was referred to the child and adult mental health services CAMHS. Suzanne said: “We were actually seen by Action for Children who were absolutely wonderful. When Mya was eight, they worked with her in school and ran a workshop for her to make craft things. We also had meetings at their base.

"When the funding for Mya’s sessions ran out, CAMHS saw us at the hospital. After Mya had a meltdown they realised that she had something a little bit more than severe anxiety and said that she needed referring for autism.

“There was a big waiting list to see a specialist and lockdown hit during the time of us waiting. Just before Mya started senior school in September 2021, she was seen and given the diagnosis that she had autism spectrum disorder. I didn’t want her labelling but I felt relieved that we’d got a diagnosis after battling all these years.

"I just assumed that once your child is diagnosed autistic all this help will come flooding in – but it doesn’t. We’ve got a lovely CAMHS worker but you’re given sheets on different organisations and you have to do the research yourself. I didn’t really know what autism was and I’ve had to do research into coping mechanisms and what not to do.

"Autism is very hard to diagnose in girls rather than boys because of their masking. Mya can pretend at school that everything is fine but when she gets home it’s like a bottle of pop exploding. Her behaviour is challenging. She can’t handle noise or busy crowds.”

In spite of the issues, Suzanne said: “Mya is a wonderful child and we have so much fun –she’s so entertaining. I always say when I’m writing her birthday cards that she makes me smile every single day.”