‘Welcome to England. How are you doing?’: the artist who holds out a hand to refugees

Marie Gracie helps families arriving from Afghanistan. The Guardian angel sends a party entertainer to help the children adjust to their first English winter

Marie Gracie never met the boy, but his fate changed her life. On 2 September 2015, three-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up, drowned, on a Turkish beach. His family were Syrian refugees, trying to reach Europe. Journalist Nilufer Demir took a photo. Alan lies face down, in a T-shirt and shorts. His feet are so tiny. His hands are upturned, facing the sky.

I'm a mother," says Gracie, an artist from Milton Keynes. Can you imagine anything worse than your child being in the news like that?" She reached out to her local chapter of Refugees Welcome, set up in the wake of the Syrian war.