As you may know, in August 2013, an accident occurred in our most important annual show, during the Local Festivity of our neighbourhood, Gràcia (Barcelona). Our human structure of 5 of 8 fell down. As a consequence of that fall, our colleague Mike suffered from severe tetraplegia. After three years and a half dealing with it, Mike passed away.

As a “colla” (group) we thought that the creation of that grant was the best way to honour him. This grant rewards research and investigation projects whose focus are the prevention and the treatment of spinal cord and cervical injuries.

Last year this grant was carried out for the first time, giving an amount of 10,000 €. This quantity was fully collected by Castellers de la Vilà de Gràcia and was given to project named: “Transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation (tSCS) to improve respiratory function in patients with cervical or thoracic spinal cord injury” from l'Institut Guttmann and led by Doctor Hatice Kumru.

Our idea, as well as Mike’s family idea, is to carry out this grant every year. As same as in the world of “castells” we know that the results can be seen after great efforts and a lot of time of dedication.

In this edition of Mike’s Lane Grant a platform of patronage will be opened to those members of the “colla”, organizations, companies, associations and individuals that would like to contribute with an economic amount. Our dream is to make Mike Lane’s Grant real for many years as well as to improve the world of Castells with the granted new studies and research projects.

In this second edition the Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia will do a first contribution of 5,000€. We would like to raise this amount with all your contributions.

We encourage you to make your own contribution as well as to spread this project among your friends your family to make this Grant great.