Fundraiser of the Month

By Alder Hey Children's Charity22 May 2023

Fundraiser of the Month

Fancy dressed for success! Two Ball Rally racing grandparents raise money for Alder Hey, from London to Lisbon in their Ford KA

We are excited to introduce you to two amazing people who we recognised as our ‘Fundraiser of the Month’ for April. Inspired by the continuing care that their baby grandson is receiving at Alder Hey, Neil and Janet told our Community Fundraising team about their family’s story.

“We chose to raise funds for Alder Hey as our Grandson Louis has been an inpatient on 1C since April 8th 2022…over a year now. At just 8 weeks old Louis was placed on life support. He was treated for sepsis, meningitis and Strep B which poisoned his blood and caused damage to his heart and caused him to have Endocarditis and myocarditis, which left him requiring a heart transplant.

Louis is currently still an in-patient at Alder Hey and we have been informed that due to his condition he will remain there until a heart becomes available. There have been numerous times when we were told the next 24hrs were critical and to prepare for the worst. They never gave up on Louis and without Alder Hey’s specialised teams and their continual care Louis would not be here today.

"We decided to do the Two Ball Rally London - Lisbon in a Ford KA as it was something different and out of our comfort zone; not only did we get to see some parts of the world we wouldn’t ever see when travelling abroad but we thought it would be a great opportunity to raise money for Alder Hey and an opportunity to raise awareness to donate vital organs that could save a person’s life."

We found the challenge very difficult at first. We were up at 6.30am and travelled for 14hrs on the first day from Brands Hatch Circuit to Le Manns in France, having to encounter driving on the wrong side of the road in a right-handed Ford KA! We had no maps, just a coordinate to put in Google Maps, we had to master the road tolls, foreign road signs and going round roundabouts the wrong way…all in fancy dress!

We also had daily challenges that we had to complete along the way from spotting different types of cars, collecting souvenirs from places and having photos taken in various places. We did a KA-raoke Carpool, needed to have a photo taken in a Super-KA and get a police officer into the driving seat of your KA to gain points to be entered into a league table.

"We had an absolutely fantastic time and hopefully will do something like this again. We are proud to have come 4th out of 46 in the league table too!”

Neil and Janet have raised £825 so far and they still have donations incoming which will make an incredible difference to young lives at Alder Hey. When we told them that they were being recognised as our Fundraiser of the Month they said:

“We feel very honoured to have won the Fundraisers of the Month award and we are proud to have been able to raise money and give something back to Alder Hey to say thank you, whilst having a great experience too.”