[THOUSAND USD]

Dear Friends, 

We just started the New Year 2013. This is the time when everyone makes New Year’s resolutions. But our goals for this year have been set a long time before 2013 began. We finally get our wish to give Alicja an opportunity to start walking on her own! This will be another year of fighting for us to improve our daughter’s quality of life. 

We start the New Year 2013 with a new appeal: “Save Alicja’s leg from amputation!” 

Despite all of Alicja’s other health issues, we have been fighting to reconstruct her deformed leg (Tibial hemimelia) since she was born. We have seen many orthopedic consultants in many countries but all of them said that the only way our daughter can ever walk is to amputate her leg through the knee so she can learn how to walk with a prosthesis. Fortunately, in February 2011, we found Dr. Paley from St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida who examined Alicja in Sheffield (UK) and he said that he is able to reconstruct Alicja's leg. Dr. Paley knows what he is saying: he has already successfully reconstructed almost 200 legs with Tibial hemimelia in children from all over the world. He is also the only specialist known to us that can treat this type of malformation. 

Tibial hemimelia is an extremely rare condition; it occurs once in every million births. We did however get in touch with parents of a few children who had their legs reconstructed by Dr. Paley. Some of these children were missing both of their tibias. What are the results of the treatment? Please see the video below: 

Jackson Will Walk – documentary about little Jackson who was born without his tibias (distributed by one of the American TV channels). 

Now it’s Alicja’s turn to get her leg reconstructed! Unfortunately, the cost of the treatment is enormous: the three stage surgery and hospitalization will cost as much as 150 thousand USD! To this amount we need to add the fees of a 6-7 months’ stay in Florida, insurance, plane tickets, etc. This will be at least another 20-30 thousand USD. 

Thanks to the help of many wonderful people, we currently have over 25 thousand USD waiting to be used for Alicja’s treatment in Florida. However, we still need nearly 150 thousand USD (around 120 thousands euro) to reach our goal! 

Time is passing so fast, and the first surgery has been scheduled for the 15th of August 2013! We need to raise the whole sum two months before, so we have time until the 15th of June 2013! 

PLEASE, PLEASE, help us to raise this crazy amount of money, so we can take our little girl to Florida and save her leg from amputation! 

This is our beautiful and very special daughter. Charge syndrome occurs once in every 10 thousand births and Tibial hemimelia, once every million births. There is probably no other child in the whole world that has both of these health issues at the same time. So, Alicja is a very special and absolutely unique little girl.

We have to fight for her!

Our plan to raise funds: “Every penny counts” 

We still need 150 thousand USD! 

Raising so much money is a real challenge for our family especially because, with all Alicja’s needs, we are not able to save anything at all. We don’t have friends or family members who are millionaires either.

However, we already managed to raise over 25 thousand USD. All the donations came from “normal” people. From people who maybe don’t have “big wallets” but who have big hearts!
That’s it! No one has to be rich to help Alicja…

If there are many of us, we’ll reach us goal!

We recently counted, that, if every person in Ireland donated just 

2 cents for Alicja, it would be enough for her treatment! Of course, it’s not real to think, that everyone in Ireland will see our appeal and pay 2 cents towards Alicja’s surgery.

However, if we asked everyone who sees this appeal to donate 

1 Euro for our daughter's surgery? We would only need donations from 120 thousand people. So, if every person that lives in Cork city or a quarter of people living in Dublin city donated one euro each, we would have enough funds for the treatment…
Well, it still won’t be easy… But, who knows, it may work if we advertise our appeal everywhere…

And what if some people donated 10 Euros? With 10 Euros donations we would only need 12 thousand people (this is the number of people living in small towns like Midleton or Mallow). And what if a fundraising event was organized for Alicja in one of these towns? Sounds better, doesn’t it?

And again, maybe some great people would be able to donate 

100 Euros towards Alicja’s surgery... We would only need 1,200 donations then to reach our goal!

Let’s imagine also, that our fund-raising appeal reaches someone, who is a little bit wealthier, who likes helping and who will decide to add 1000 Euros to Alicja’s account? We would only need donations from 120 people! We understand of course that these donators would wish to speak to us first. You are welcome to contact us any time through a contact link on our website. We will answer every question!

It sounds like a good plan. If we managed to find 20 people who donated 1000 Euros towards Alicja’s treatment, then 200 donators, who gave 100 Euros, and 1800 of those who donated 10 Euros, we would raise 40 thousand Euros towards our daughter’s surgery. We would then need to raise 80 thousand euro through “1 Euro for Alicja” project.

Are we just daydreaming? Well, we believe these dreams can come true!

"1 Euro for Alicja" project - help us to raise 120 thousand Euro coins!

As we said, we still need around 120 thousand Euros to save Alicja's leg from amputation. The interesting thing is... 120 thousands is also the population of Cork City!

So, if every person living in Cork City gave as little as 1 Euro towards Alicja fund, we would have enough money to perform her surgery... Wouldn't this be great?

However, there is a practical issue related to the "1 Euro for Alicja" project. It's difficult to imagine that people, who don't meet us every day, will go to the bank to lodge 1 euro into Alicja's Fund... There is a PayPal option on our website but we know not everyone will want to use this...

That's why we prepared a label with basic information about Alicja and the fundraiser. Anyone can print this label from our website (how can you help) and put it on a can. The cans can be bought for 

1 Euro in the “2 Euros shops”. They can then be placed in the shops, companies, churches, sporting clubs and pubs.

We ask you to please forward our appeal to your friends, family, colleagues, co-workers and neighbors. Maybe you know an individual, company or foundation that could help us out with a bigger amount of money. If so, please forward this message to them.

Please also, if you can, organize a “1 Euro for Alicja” action at work, sports club or church. People, who manage to raise the biggest number of Euro coins, will win a very special prize: big hug from 

Alicja :-)

We need 120 thousand Euros to avoid amputation! Even little donations if they come from many people will help us to raise this crazy amount!

Remember, every penny counts!

Alicja has already been learning how to walk using her temporary prosthesis (walking is now her favorite exercise :-)). She’s been making excellent progress. Please just look at her pictures below:

Copyright © 2009-2013 All rights reserved - Alicja Nowicka; Website, Text & Photographs - Ania & Radek