What a night for the Spread a Smile 2025 Gala Dinner, generously sponsored by Downing and held at the beautiful Corinthia London.
It was a truly incredible evening, bringing together friends and supporters of Spread a Smile, with an amazing £200,000 raised to support our work spreading smiles and bringing joy and happiness to seriously ill children and young people.
Our host, Spread a Smile Ambassador Suzi Ruffell, expertly guided us through proceedings, and we heard from our Co-Founders and Trustees, Josephine Segal MBE and Vanessa Crocker MBE about their inspiration for setting up the charity back in 2013.
We were also delighted to welcome Yen Chang, Consultant in Clinical Oncology and Clinical Lead for Proton Beam Therapy at University College London Hospital, who was interviewed by Suzi Ruffell about the impact of Spread a Smile’s support for patients, families and also for staff at UCLH.
We were also honoured to welcome the family of Emma Noto who bravely shared their journey with us through a beautiful new film about how Spread a Smile supported Emma, Mum Nathalie, Dad Carmelo and sister Clare after Emma was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a rare type of soft tissue cancer. We are so grateful to Nathalie and Carmelo for sharing experiences so bravely and you can watch and share Emma’s film here.
The room was filled with laughter and warmth and in true Spread a Smile style, our entertainers, including musicians, singers and
magicians were on hand to delight and surprise our guests with their talents. Two of our entertainers, Collette Spinner and Jack Reitman made a huge impact on the audience with their performance of Céline Dion and Andrea Bocelli’s ‘The Prayer’. Our magicians Nick, Sacha and Gary wowed the audience with their magic skills and Judge The Poet showcased his talents, making up poems for guests on the spot and expertly leading our pledge section from the stage.
You can take a look at photos from the event here and make sure you keep an eye out for photos of the amazing LEGO® table centrepieces; each one made by one of the families we support using sets donated by our friends at the LEGO Group.
A huge thank you to everyone for joining is last night, for their kindness and commitment and for helping to raise such an incredible amount of money to ensure we can continue spreading smiles when they are needed most.
Particular thanks to our sponsor Downing, Suzi Ruffell for being the perfect host and to Corinthia London for making us all so welcome.
If you or your company would like to support our work further, please reach out to Tash Newall in our fundraising team at natasha@spreadasmile.org to start the conversation.