Alfies smile fighting Childhood Cancer together

Hi, My name is Kerry and my husbands name is John. We are parents to 3 beautiful children Alfie 14, Louie 5 and Darcie 2.

In September 2019 when Alfie was just 10 years old nothing could have prepared us for the journey we were about to endure but after lots of visits to our local hospital, our beautiful boy was diagnosed with a high grade cancerous Brain tumour.

Alfie was transferred to Birmingham childrens hospital and Over 18 months we had a very difficult journey, Alfie endured 3 surgeries 6 weeks of radiotherapy and 9 months of high dose chemotherapy.

Unfortunately for many children with high risk cancers like Alfie’s they either lose their battles or they are left with complex health needs and disabilities due to the gruelling treatment they receive. Alfie fell into that category but we are so grateful he’s here and got to ring the end of treatment bell.

When we received Alfie’s diagnosis our hearts were broken and the months following watching not only Alfie but hundreds of children and their families go through something so awful was too painful to comprehend, but it became our world. That was then as a family we knew we had to do something so it became our mission to share Alfie’s story and raise awareness into childhood cancer.

We started by setting up some fundraising platforms and raised £5000 for Birmingham Childrens Hospital and £3000 for children with cancer Uk.

We then decided to create the Name Alfie’s Smile and start our journey to setting up our own charity to support local children who have been diagnosed with cancer and granting them wishes. We have now delivered 10 individual wishes to local children which we are extremely proud of.

but we don’t just stop there. Alfie regularly visits our local hospital, Birmingham childrens hospital, Ronald McDonald and Acorns to deliver gifts and presents throughout the year including Easter and Christmas.

We have also supplied our children’s wards with TV’s, consoles, games and activities to support children and their families when staying in hospital.

We hold many fundraising events to raise awareness and funds to continue to support children with cancer some of our recent ones have been a charity ball, quiz night and I have just completed a 10k run to raise funds for children with cancer.

We have some projects that we would like to support in the coming year which will be to decorate an oncology unit within the hospital and to support in providing hair systems for children with permanent hair loss like Alfie following treatment but we cannot do this without continued fundraising from our amazing family friends and supporters.

Never did we wish this to be ‘our story’ but it is but together we can make a difference to children fighting cancer.

kerry, John, Alfie, Louie and Darcie