A video produced by BBC News features the personal accounts of Karen Cockburn and Chris Knighton, both of whom lost their husbands to mesothelioma.

Chris founded the Mick Knighton Mesothelioma Research Fund, which seeks to raise awareness of mesothelioma as well as money for research, in memory of her husband, Mick. He was diagnosed in August 2000, and passed away 7 months later. Vowing that he would not die in vain, and recognizing the numbers of people affected by asbestos exposure, she started the Fund in 2002.

Soon, the organization also established a Snowdrop Fund, which allows others affected by mesothelioma to set up fundraising efforts as tributes to their loved ones. The MKMRF helps to organize and promote these activities.

MyMeso.org recently featured one of these Snowdrop Funds, the Bob Tolley Mesothelioma Snowdrop Fund, established by his daughter, Christine.

According to Chris Knighton, by pooling the Snowdrop Funds with the money raised directly by the Mick Knighton Mesothelioma Research Fund, a greater impact can be made on research into the disease. There currently is no government funding for mesothelioma research in the UK.

The Snowdrop is a flower, which Chris said she chose because it “works so hard through the depths of despair in the winter, yet come the spring it pushes through the ground bringing hope and promise for the future to everyone who sees it. We hope these funds will give hope and promise to all who take part.”

For more information about establishing your own Snowdrop Fund, contact cknighton-mkmrf@btconnect.com or telephone 0191 2637386 in the UK.

The family of Bob Tolley, who passed away at age 67 from mesothelioma on Sept. 26, 2006 in the UK, has established the Bob Tolley Mesothelioma Snowdrop Fund in his honor. It is their goal to raise awareness of this disease, and raise funds for research for a cure.

Bob became ill in May 2006 and was diagnosed with mesothelioma July 31, 2006. He passed away only two months later.

“We as a family had never heard of Mesothelioma, which is caused by exposure to asbestos,” Bob’s daughter Christine writes on the web site. “It took all this time for the disease to take its toll. Apparently asbestos takes the slowest route around the body, which is why sufferers have no symptoms for years or even decades after being exposed.”

They discovered Bob, a resident of Eastbourne, had worked with asbestos in his job doing gas conversions when natural gas was piped to homes in 1973-74.

On Sept. 29, 2007, the family held its first Charity Day, which featured a golf tournament, auction, raffle and disco, which raised £1,403 in Bob’s memory. On Sept. 20, 2008, the second Charity Day event raised £3,200! The money raised supports the Mick Knighton Mesothelioma Research Fund and The British Lung Foundation.

“By setting up this fund, we can remember a very special person, who was a loving husband, dad, granddad and friend,” Christine says. “He will never be forgotten. We want thoughts of him to raise a smile and a laugh. That is what he would have wanted and that is the sort of man he was.”

You can contact the Bob Tolley Mesothelioma Snowdrop Fund at 180 Ashford Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN22 3UA; telephone 01323 649220 or email millietalula@supanet.com or Chris@nimaprint.co.uk.