THE family of a little girl who suffered a debilitating brain injury this week thanked Hackney shopkeepers who helped raise almost �20,000 for her care.

In a touching display of community spirit, Broadway Market shopkeepers rallied together offering their goods for free at an auction to help six-year-old Ruby Lambert.

Ruby currently receives round-the-clock care at the Children’s Trust in Surrey after losing much of her movement and speech in a brain injury in April.

The youngster had been at school in Islington when without warning she suffered heart failure, starving oxygen to her brain.

Ruby’s devastated parents, Catherine Newell and Simon Lambert of Bethnal Green, had no idea Ruby had an underlying heart condition and are now desperately trying to raise �150,000 for specialist treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Mum Catherine said: “The hospital has the world’s best child specialist program in Hypoxic brain injury (which Ruby suffered). There’s just no equivalent in the UK.

“With children there is usually a two-year window to get this sort of intensive rehabilitation work done, so it is an emergency. We’re hoping to go in April.”

To help raise vital funds, businesses from Broadway Market and local artists donated pieces to an auction held at Rochelle School recently.

“The response was just overwhelming,” Catherine said.

“The Broadway Market shops and stallholders were so generous, contributing lovely luxury goods like meals for two, haircuts, flowers and a top-of-the-range bike.”

The family is also donating 10 per-cent of the auction’s proceeds to London’s Air Ambulance which transported Ruby after her collapse.

For upcoming fundraising events visit: www.one4ruby.com