Saving Eliza

Saving Eliza is the name for both a campaign, and associated three minute video, focused on saving the life of Eliza O'Neill. Eliza, then a 3-year-old living in Columbia, South Carolina, was diagnosed in 2013 with Sanfillipo syndrome – a terminal, rapidly degenerative disease in children.[1] The O'Neill family is working to raise the money needed to fund a clinical trial which could save the lives of Eliza and other children with the disease. Their efforts are part of a trend, by concerned private citizens, to raise money for research and drug trials regarding rare diseases, which might otherwise be under-addressed by pharmaceutical companies.[2] The O'Neills had found that researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital, in Columbus, Ohio, had found a gene therapy that worked on mice, but they would need an additional $2.5 million to start clinical trials humans.[3]

The O'Neills established the non-profit Cure Sanfilippo Foundation to advocate for and fund research towards the cure for children.[4][5] The campaign was launched in October 2013.[6] After raising only $250,000 in the first half year, they expanded their efforts with the addition of the video in July 2014.[2][7]

The original Saving Eliza campaign was channeled through the GoFundMe web platform in October 2013.[6] By 2016, after the video went viral, the GoFundMe campaign surpassed its original goal of $2 million – a new record, at that time, as the most money ever raised for a single GoFundMe campaign.[8]