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Save-On-Food customers can help save lives with small, at till donations

New campaign aims to raise $25,000 to purchase patient monitor for VGH’s pediatric intensive care unit
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It’s been a year since Eliza Wilkerson was last hospitalized and although she can’t walk, that doesn’t slow her down or keep her from playing outside with her family. (Provided by Stacey Wilkerson)

Eliza Wilkerson is a brown-haired seven-year-old girl with a big smile and a passion for life, but there was a time when her parents weren’t sure she would make it.

When she was just 11 months old, Eliza got a cold that spiralled into something far worse. Her parents thought she had the measles at first after a red rash took over her little body.

READ ALSO: When hospital becomes home: Victoria seven-year-old has spent a third of her life in hospital

Stacey Wilkerson has been an advocate for the lifesaving care her daughter received after Eliza spent almost a third of her young life in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of Victoria General Hospital.

Eliza has an auto-immune disease that causes her immune system to go into overdrive and attack her own body’s systems such as her lungs, bowels, bone marrow and kidneys.

A new campaign has launched at eight Save-On-Foods stores in Greater Victoria, to help fundraise for a critically needed patient monitor for the PICU.

The monitors provide caregivers — and parents — with vital information that aids in making life-saving decisions.

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“We learn to read those pretty well for people with no medical training,” Wilkerson said in an interview with Black Press Media back in July. “We could watch second by second how hard [Eliza] was fighting.”

Until Dec. 4, customers at the Blanshard Street, Fort Street, Pandora Avenue, Sidney, Tillicum, University Heights, Vic West and West Shore Save-On-Foods locations can make an at-the-till donation to help save the lives of children such as Eliza.

The goal of the three-week campaign is to raise $25,000. To learn more about the Save-On-Foods campaign, or to make a donation, visit victoriahf.ca.



kendra.crighton@blackpress.ca

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