Ian’s Story

On March 15th our daughter Elsie was born. She was born with hlhs and unbalanced avsd. Unfortunately she passed away on the 20th March.

We were devastated. It was the support of friends and family that helped us get through such an incredibly difficult time in our lives. People kept offering us donations, so we decided to donate some money to ward 11 at Birmingham children’s hospital where Elsie was.

I phoned up the ward and asked how to donate. I was told the best way to do it was just donate to the hospital but we wanted to buy something physical and give it to them. They suggested that they were always short of nappies, baby grows, hats, gloves etc. After that call we had a lightbulb moment. We thought that it would be nice to put together a survival kit for new families coming on the ward.

The kit would include; a pack of nappies, a baby grow, hat, mittens, socks as well as a hand knitted blanket for baby. Then it would also include things for parents like puzzle book, pens, pads, toothbrush all put together in a gift box which could be used for memories.


We shouted out our idea on Facebook and very soon had a large pot of money to do these ‘Elsie boxes’.
We have done our first delivery to the ward and they are being given out.