Hi everyone,

We must be crazy as myself and three family members (Luke, Kerrie and Adam) are taking part in a sponsored sky dive to raise money for Alder Hey. If you have 3 minutes or maybe 5, please read our story below of why we are taking part in this and how your donations and support will help.

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital cares for 450,000 children and young people every year. In 2024 we were just one patient out of this 450,000 that has required their expertise.

In January 2024 my beautiful baby boy was born and we are lucky to have such state of the art facilities and expert consultants on our doorstep in Liverpool for our young people when we need it, with many other children having to travel to Alder Hey to receive specialist care. Although I’d hope that if you have children or when you do in the future, you do not need to use the local services, Alder Hey relies on fundraising efforts to help fund a range of activities and projects that are designed to enhance and improve the lives of the amazing young patients they see. Please consider donating to this local cause as you never know when or if you could need their services and it’s often when you least expect it and in your time of need that you may find yourself needing them for your family. Your donations to this local cause can make it be the best it can be to support everyone in the local area.

Alder Hey relies on fundraising efforts to help fund a range of activities and projects that are designed to enhance and improve the lives of our amazing young patients.

Our little boy has received fantastic care over his first year of life at Alder Hey and continues to receive this care going forward. He’s spent a total of four months in hospital so far with his most recent visit being for two months in November and December 2024. He has received care from cardiology, respiratory, neurology, neuromuscular, surgery, SALT, dieticians and paediatricians over this period including spending time in HDU and ICU. During our time here, we have also had first hand experience of the ward musicians and play specialists providing a range of activities which are invaluable in giving parents a break and a bit of normality.

Alder Hey will utilise this fundraising in a variety of ways including to enable them to fund specialist medical equipment to ensure the brilliant surgeons and clinical staff have the most up to date and cutting edge technology available and funding hi-tech distraction equipment designed and proven to reduce pain and anxiety in patients. Funding a range of programmes and special projects such as ward musicians, an on-site magician and the play specialists on every ward. In September 2021 they launched a new Surgical Neonatal Appeal to raise £3m towards a brand new, state of the art Surgical Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the hospital.

Their hugely successful 7in10 Children’s Mental Health Appeal, which highlighted that 70% of young people with a mental health condition are currently missing out on vital mental health interventions at a sufficiently early age, raised close to £3m to enhance inpatient and community mental health services at the brand new mental health unit at Alder Hey, enabling more children to access the treatment they need at the time they need. Working in education as a teacher and as part of a pastoral team I can’t tell you how much this mental health services is needed and the growing demand for it for our young people today.

Myself and 3 family members Luke, Kerrie and Adam have decided to help try to put back into Alder Hey by raising as much money as we can to support their projects like the ones mentioned above as a thank you for the care and support my family has received and continues to receive. We will all be taking part in a sponsored Sky Dive on the 26th April 2025 to raise money for this great cause. This will involve all four of us jumping out of a plane at 10,000ft at around 120mph. If you can spare anything to help us reach our target goal to enable Alder Hey to receive as much money as possible to continue their great work we would be eternally grateful.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Thank you for any donations and support you have given us and for reading this long thread if you made it to the end.

Thanks,

Steph, Luke, Kerrie and Adam.

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