HUNDREDS of children spending Christmas in hospital will receive a gift thanks to the family of a tragic baby girl from Oswaldtwistle.

Janine McInerney and her sister, Shala Hindle, launched a social media campaign in memory of her daughter, Ava-Jai McInerney, who died of leukaemia aged 14-months in October.

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Shala said: “A few weeks before we knew Ava wasn’t going to make a recovery, I set up a Facebook page called Make Christmas Special, asking for donations of toys to send to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital at Christmas.

“We hoped a few people would see our page and donate but we have been overwhelmed with the support and kindness shown.

“We have enough donations to start a toy shop.”

She continued: “After Ava passed away, this cause became more important to us, as this is our way of keeping Ava’s memory alive and helping other families in the same heart-breaking situation, having a child fighting cancer.

“We literally have hundreds of gifts, many of which have been donated by strangers.”

Ava-Jai had a bone barrow transplant in April in a successful bid to beat leukaemia, which she was diagnosed with at four-months-old.

But following the transplant, her immune system failed, while tests showed her brain was losing mass.

Doctors broke the heart-breaking news that Ava-Jai, who was on a ventilator to help her breathe, was dying.

She died in her parents’ arms after succumbing to a mystery illness, leaving her family distraught.

As well as her parents, Janine and Chris, she also left behind her twin brother William, and elder brother Brandon, 18.

Acute myeloid leukaemia is very rare, particularly among babies, as the risk of developing AML increases with age.

It is most common in people over 65-years-old.

Around 30 per cent of people in need of a transplant can find a suitable donor in their family, and her twin brother William was tested, but was not a suitable match.

Instead, a match was found for Ava-Jai through the Anthony Nolan Trust, which helps the other 70 per cent of bone marrow recipients to find a stranger to save their lives.

The trust has more than 500,000 adults on its register, and every time someone comes to them in need of a transplant, they check their register for a match.

The Anthony Nolan Trust makes more than 1,000 matches every year.

Ava-Jai was lucky, and the Trust found her three suitable matches within six weeks - two women in the UK, and a man in Germany - and bone marrow was transplanted from a 21-year-old woman.