Fundraising ride to help Bunbury boy with rare developmental disorder

A Bunbury family struggling to help their son who suffers from a non-curable genetic disease has received an outpouring of community support.

Jaya Polidano and Matija Yates’ young son Mitchell suffers from Pallister-Killian syndrome, a rare developmental disorder.

Mitchell’s mother, Jaya Polidano, said he was one of 20 people in Australia with the disease.

We got his diagnosis at seven weeks which is an extremely rare condition and less than 500 in the world have it.

“There is no cure for it and it is basically just trying to treat it and get him to walk because only 30 per cent of people with this disease will ever walk.”

Ms Polidano said they had to cut Mitchell’s therapy back to once a month because they could not afford it.

“It has been hard but we just deal with it and it has been very expensive for all of his therapy.”

The True Brother Social Club South West jumped on board to host a fundraiser to go towards Mitchell’s medical expenses.

TBSC SW secretary Sandra Bland said it was very important to help the family and encouraged anyone to join in Mitchell’s Run on February 1.

“After meeting them we thought what a lovely family and they got in touch with us and asked if we could do something to help and we said ‘yes, why not’, there is no one more deserving,” she said.

“We didn't even have to think about it, it was just unanimous.

In this region the community support and when people get together for these things, it’s just fantastic and I love living down here.

The run will begin at Koombana Bay Foreshore at 10am with a cost of $20 a vehicle.