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Suzanne Brennan

Masthaven wins Best Charity Partnership

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Masthaven and Spread a Smile win Best Charity Partnership of the Year Award

In 2019 Spread a Smile was thrilled to be chosen as Masthaven Bank’s charity partner and, since then, the bank has supported Spread a Smile in a huge variety of creative ways. We are delighted to announce that all of their hard work has been formally recognised at the MoneyAge Awards 2020 where they have won Best Charity Partnership of the Year Award.

Since our partnership began with Masthaven they have supported us through volunteering opportunities, office fundraising activities, triathlons, a half marathon with all sorts of dyed hair to increase donations, a marathon in a back garden, an employee dressing up as a ballerina and running through the streets of London, sponsoring a Spread a Smile therapy dog, sponsoring our annual Golf Day and so much more. They even managed to secure Spread a Smile as the principle charity for the British Mortgage Awards raising vital funds (more than £6,000!) and awareness for the charity.

In 2020 Masthaven launched their most ambitious fundraising challenge to date: ‘Oldman vs Newman’. This saw Jason Finch, their Senior Credit Operations Manager, and Matt Newman, their Lending Transformation Manager, join forces in an ‘Oldman versus Newman’ yearlong challenge to raise a mammoth £20,020 for Spread a Smile. Between them they are running 2,020 miles this year and have almost completed this running target! The whole bank has taken part in fundraising around this challenge for the year and they certainly haven’t let Covid-19 dampen their efforts… they have just broken their fundraising target!!

            

This is an incredible feat in ‘normal’ times, let alone during a global pandemic and we are so grateful for all of the support that we’ve received from each and every employee at the bank. The bank’s extremely generous donation in lieu of a Christmas party #XmasPartyHeroes this year has also been particularly heartwarming. Masthaven’s generosity has and will continue to have a truly significant and lasting impact on our vital work; helping to create moments of joy during some of their darkest days and providing positive memories for their whole family.

We are immensely proud to be working with Masthaven and so pleased that their hard work has been recognised through this recent award. Congratulations and thank you!

The Art of Halloween

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We may not be able to visit children in hospital in person at this time but it hasn’t stopped the Spread a Smile team from bringing a little Halloween magic to hospital wards.  Marina, our Head of Art has been working across our hospital partners to brighten hospital wards and windows with colourful window murals.  Every image helps enrich the hospital environment and create a more welcoming space for children and their parents.

Photograph: Jackie Ambrose from King’s College Hospital showcases two of Spread a Smile’s Halloween murals

 

Fangtastic Halloween

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This Halloween we’ve been spreading spooky smiles to hospitalised children across three of our partner hospitals in London.  Thanks to our friends at Bregal Milestone we’ve delivered more than 250 treat-filled Halloween buckets to seriously ill children in University College Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital and Evelina Children’s Hospital.  Every bucket was packed full of Halloween goodies including a selection of slime, jellies, popcorn, stickers and sweets and aimed as spreading smiles and spooky fun on the eve of Halloween.

Photograph: Marion Depre, Jan Bruennler & Shafali Gupta from Bregal Milestone joined the Spread a Smile witch and CEO, Lucy Jackson at UCLH, London to deliver Halloween buckets

We were also thrilled to host a virtual Halloween-themed activity day during half term, with over 50 patients joining from our hospital partners and from their homes. The day included an energetic session with the fabulous Body Coach, Joe Wicks, an incredible football freestyle performance and tips from Jamie Knight, Mad Science and Wild Science workshops, Halloween arts and crafts and so much more. One young patient summed up the day by saying, “I loved it. It was the best day in hospital.”

Override Spinning to Spread Smiles

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On Sunday 18 October, brand new spinning studio, Override in Woodside Park, North London, is taking on a challenge to cycle to Great Ormond Street Hospital and back – whilst we can’t physically go to GOSH they’re still going the distance to spread more smiles!
The classes cost £15 each with the full amount coming to Spread a Smile. To join either the 9am or 10am classes click the link below and scroll through to 18 October.

Sign up here: https://overridespin.com/index.php/timetable/

Take the Family Bingo Challenge

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With only a couple of weeks left of the summer holidays, now is the time to put the screens to one side and make our time together count.  Even better – to do this whilst supporting the thousands of seriously ill children isolating in hospital or at home this summer

We’ve created a fun and free Family Bingo Challenge in partnership with the UK’s leading family experiences platform, Kidadl.com.  Families can fill the last couple of weeks of the summer holidays by completing a series of brilliant challenges ranging from arts & craft to sports & active, drama and poetry and everything in between! You don’t need any equipment to get started, just the desire to take part and fundraise.

“Whether you decide to complete the bingo card in an afternoon or over the course of two weeks, your family will have lots of fun taking part,” says Lucy Jackson, CEO of Spread a Smile.  “As the rest of the country slowly returns to a new normal, seriously ill children must continue to watch from their beds.  By participating in our Family Challenge Bingo you will be helping to spread joy and laughter at a time when the greatest difference is measured in smiles.”

Hannah Feldman, CEO of Kidadl.com adds “Lockdown has been hard on families across the UK and the Family Bingo Challenge has been designed to help us come together, share some laughs, make some memories before school begins again, and help the thousands of seriously ill children in hospital this summer. Join us and help make the end of the summer holidays that bit more meaningful all round”.

To download the Family Challenge Bingo card and get started on the challenges plus tips on fundraising please go to https://spreadasmile.org/event/family-challenge-bingo/

Thank you.

First Drop of Art Packs

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We continued with our deliveries of art and boredom-busting packs earlier this week, delivering 200 packs to patients at Great Ormond Street Hospital and 50 packs to out-patients in radiotherapy at University College Hospital. Filled with items including activity books, pens, stickers, puzzles and more, as well as some sweet treats, each specially created pack will help to spread a much needed smile to a child who is currently in hospital.

Whilst we’re all feeling the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown, children in hospital are feeling increasingly isolated – they can currently only have one parent or carer with them in hospital, can’t see their siblings, and for infection control purposes, hospitals are having to restrict the number of toys available – they can all only be used by a single patient.

We would like to say a huge thanks to our partners who helped us to create these packs, including Arcturus  Books, Alligator Products, Cheatwell Games, Peachy Stickers, Polybags, Royal Talens Foundation, Shanly Foundation and Spin Master.

If you’d like to partner with us on future drops, please do get in touch on admin@spreadasmile.org