£50,000 appeal to help save life of Alice, four

Calderdale friends of a schoolmate are helping raise money for £50,000 life-saving treatment and operation on her grand-daughter.
Cause: Fundraising for Jackie Hills grand-daughter Alice is being undertaken by old friends in CalderdaleCause: Fundraising for Jackie Hills grand-daughter Alice is being undertaken by old friends in Calderdale
Cause: Fundraising for Jackie Hills grand-daughter Alice is being undertaken by old friends in Calderdale

Jackie Hill was born in Lincolnshire but lived in the Calder Valley, where she still has many friends. Her dad Tom Dawson was a local policeman in Mytholmroyd who gained a BEM from the Queen for services to the community, helping establish the original Mytholmroyd Community Centre building from old chicken huts, and he was also a director of Halifax Town football club.

Jackie met and married an Italian and her three children continue to live in Italy. Her eldest daughter Sara Serra’s middle child Alice Salvati, who is four, needs serious medical help. Alice was born with a rare genetic life-threatening condition, venous vascular malformation in her tongue, neck and larynx, which threatens her breathing, which is unable to be treated in Italy.

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The family have contacted Prof Milton Waner, an internationally recognised pioneer in the development of successful treatments for vascular anomalies who travels to Berlin from New York to treat children. “This condition can be treated but the cost of doing so is way above anything my daughter and her husband can afford. We ask for your help meeting that and ask that you share Alice’s story,” she said. Jackie has set up a Just Giving crowdfunding site to raise the estimated £50,000 treatment - it can be reached at www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/jackie-hill

Health: Alices condition threatens her breathingHealth: Alices condition threatens her breathing
Health: Alices condition threatens her breathing

Jackie says Peter Coenen at his Old School Dance Works, Halifax, has run a fundraising event, Peter’s mum Margaret Newton, a friend of Jackie’s, is to run an afternoon tea event in Brighouse and in Sowerby Bridge another old friend Tina Williams has set in motion a “Cheddar Challege” on Facebook. Even donating small amount will help, said Jackie, appreciating the help of her old friends. “It is wonderful, it really is,” she said.