Emily Chapman Laing
Blind Bight mother Ashlee Golding is raising funds for the Good Friday Appeal (GFA) after her daughter suffered second degree burns earlier this year.
Ashlee’s business Mimi & Ko, a luxury home fragrance brand, donated 10% of all sales to the GFA over the Easter period.
“I’ve always been really amazed by the Royal Children’s Hospital,” she said.
In January of this year, Ashlee’s three-year-old daughter Marlie suffered second degree burns on her entire hand after touching a hot stove.
Despite Ashlee’s persistent education about the dangers of touching hot things, Marlie’s curiosity got the best of her.
“If it wasn’t for the amazing team of doctors and nurses [at RCH] Marlie could have had permanent damage and loss of function,” Ashlee said.
While Ashlee was cutting up vegetables for a curry, Marlie snuck into the kitchen behind her.
“It wasn’t even a second,” Ashlee said.
“She put her hand down and straight away lifted it off and in that time she had second degree burns.
“I asked her later why she did it and she just said she wanted to check if it was hot.”
Ashlee and Marlie found themselves at the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) to have Marlie’s burns treated.
Ashlee said the supportive and loving atmosphere created by the doctors and nurses was unparalleled.
“She’s a very nervous child,” Ashlee said.
“Sometimes we put a bandaid on and she’s too scared to take it off.
“I was so worried about how she was going to handle it, but when they took her she wasn’t even worried.
Ashlee said Marlie was even able to be brave while skin was cut from her hand while she watched.
“Just the way they orient themselves and talked to her made her feel so comfortable with them even though it was such a short amount of time.
“It was amazing they could make her feel like that.”
The fundraiser was a bit last minute, Ashlee said, but she plans to be more organised next year.
“It’s something we want to continue to support,” she said.
“It takes a split second for something bad to happen, and you can’t even describe how thankful you are that they are there when it does.”
Mimi & Ko was born during the pandemic.
“While I was on maternity leave during COVID, it was very difficult not being able to see my family,” Ashlee said.
“I was trying to find something to keep me busy, and I’m very creative so I was looking for a way to use my interests.”
Ashlee already had a love for candles and had been working on creating her own as a hobby for months.
“I started making them and sent them to my friends during lockdown to try and make them happy and they said they were really good, so it took off from there,” she said.
Ashlee said Japanese Honeysuckle has been a crowd pleaser, which suits her just fine as the fragrance is a favourite of her own.
Marlie’s burns have since healed completely and Ashlee is looking forward to contributing to the GFA each year.
