Gofundme launched to help cover funeral costs of young Seaford mum with cancer

Samantha King, best known as Sammi, from Seaford was told she has just two months to live before Christmas.

Sammi, mother to six-year-old Evie, is now staying in a hospice after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

She was first diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer in 2019 and was told she was in remission in February 2021

Ten months later, after going to the doctors due to feeling unwell, she was told she has stage four bone cancer.

Sammi with her dad Eddie and mum Anne Marie.

One of her close friends, Marie Laureys, 29, said: "For the first time in years she was looking forward to the future. She was making plans.

"From the moment she was diagnosed she deteriorated quite quickly and she's now in a hospice.

"They couldn't have put her through chemo or anything like that because she's five stone, she's a tiny, tiny girl and she wouldn't have been able to hack it again.

"She's got a six-year-old daughter who she's leaving behind, it's just awful. Sammi is the most honest, caring, kindest soul that you could ever come across."

Marie describes Sammi's relationship with her daughter as "thick as thieves" says that Evie loves her mum very much and will miss her terribly.

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She said that despite her illness, Sammi continued to be the "best mum she could possibly be, she never let her down".

A group of Sammi's friends, who have all known each other since they were children, have set up a Gofundme page to help raise money for funeral costs and a special ashes necklace for her daughter.

It will cost Sammi's family £1,000 to bring her home from Lancashire, where she now lives, for her funeral.

Marie says they want to help her parents - Anne Marie and Eddie King - with as much money as possible, as the funeral plans will cost around £6,000.

She said: "We all grew up together and around her parents, we would really love to be able to pay a big chunk of the money ourselves and this is how we can try to do that."

Sammi with her daughter Evie when she was a baby

When she was in hospital Sammi was able to tell her friends her wishes for her funeral and has picked out the Ashes into Glass necklace that she would like Evie to have.

Marie said: "We sat with her parents and her in hospital and we listened to the songs she wanted, sorted the order of service, went through the thousands and thousands of photos we printed.

"Her friends are all very heavily involved in the whole thing, we're going to be throwing her wake and arranging special things for her daughter.

"We've lost a lot of people within our group and so when something like this happens we really club together and help each other through.

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"Samantha knows that we're going to do the same for her and her little girl."

Due to Covid restrictions Sammi is unable to have more than four visitors, and her best friend Keanna, who lives nearby, was unable to visit her.

Marie, their friends and their children were able to travel up to Lancashire to visit Sammi in the hospice garden earlier this month.

Marie said: "It was a weirdly nice day for the kids, as they were leaving they all said 'see you later Auntie Sammi, see you next time', it was heartbreaking.

"They love their Auntie Sammi, she is just so loved by everybody. It's always the good ones, it's so unfair.

"She always says that she's the lucky one to have us but we always say we are to have been blessed with her."

To donate to Sammi's Gofundme page please visit: www.gofundme.com/bringourgirlsammihome