Guests swapped formal black tie for brightly-coloured Glastonbury style outfits in tribute to music festival-loving Kerry Parkinson of Blackpool who died of breast cancer a day after her 42nd birthday.
FestiBall was held in the Woodland Suite at Ribby Hall Village at Wrea Green and featured DJs, live music, a flower wall and hay bales. The celebration of Kerry’s life, was organised by her fiance Mick Doherty and her cousins Sarah Pierce, Sheryl Armer and Iain Farmer. It was attended by 300 family members, friends and work colleagues. The event raised more than £10,000 which is now helping to convert a disused operating theatre at Blackpool Victoria Hospital into an acute cancer triage unit which will save cancer patients on the Fylde Coast attending the hospital’s busy A&E department if they need urgent medical care. The project is being funded by Rosemere Cancer Foundation and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s own charity Blue Skies.
Rosemere Cancer Foundation works to bring world class cancer treatments and services to patients throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria being treated at Rosemere Cancer Centre, the region’s specialist treatment centre at the Royal Preston Hospital, and at another eight local hospital cancer units. It does this by funding cutting edge equipment, research, training and other services that would otherwise be beyond limited NHS resources.
