Ely school boy, Nathan Beech, 10, rallied his family to set up shop outside his home selling cakes to raise money for cancer research.

Ely Standard: Nathan Beech at his Cancer Research UK chairty cake sale, raising over £150.Nathan Beech at his Cancer Research UK chairty cake sale, raising over £150. (Image: Archant)

The idea came about after his cub pack, the 1st Witchford Cubs, began researching different charities for a badge they’re working towards.

Cancer Research is close to home for Nathan as his granddad, David Beech, was diagnosed with leukaemia in October 2016.

Nathan’s father Ian said: “I think Nathan selected Cancer Research UK because they have a shop on the high street in Ely, so it makes it more tangible for him.”

When Nathan decided he would hold a cake sale he set out and created his own flyers to help promote the event. On the flyer he wrote “You like cake, I like cake; everyone likes cake”.

Nathan’s family helped him advertise on social media using the flyer he had made. Ian and Nathan then hand delivered the flyers to houses on their street.

The following day Nathan and his sister, Freya took some flyers into their school, Ely St. John’s.

Ely Standard: Nathan Beech at his Cancer Research UK chairty cake sale, raising over £150.Nathan Beech at his Cancer Research UK chairty cake sale, raising over £150. (Image: Archant)

The Beech family made all but one of the cakes on sale, the other being supplied by one of Ian’s work colleagues. They opened the cake sale outside the family home on Kingsley Walk on Saturday November 11 just before 10am and within 90 minutes they had sold out.

Ian said: “We were asking for 50p per cake but everyone was so generous. The generosity of people and how impressed they were with Nathan came as a big surprise to him.

“He kept asking why people kept giving too much money, and why they didn’t want any change.

“I told him that the people were happy to give the money to the charity because they knew they’d be helping something that was important him and probably important to them”.

All together, Nathan’s cake sale raised £112.10 although the family have received a further £40 in donations from people who wished to donate but couldn’t make the cake sale.

Ian said: “I’ve told Nathan how proud I am of him and how important what he’s done is for helping improve the lives of people suffering with cancer.

“My dad has spoken to Nathan to tell him how amazing what he’s done is, and how mature and grown up his idea was, and of course he got the badge from cubs.”