Viv Levene

The wonderful Trinny Woodall and her team of make up artists from Trinny London recently joined us at University College Hospital to makeover teenagers and their mums on the teenage wards there.

Trinny London has been supporting Spread a Smile with their FreshFlush LIP2CHEEKS Mama and Katja colours by generously donating 10% of sales of both to Spread a Smile.

Trinny volunteered to come to UCLH with us to spread smiles to teenagers and their parents. For children, teenagers and their families, life in hospital is all-consuming and personal care definitely takes a back seat. Trinny so generously spent copious amounts of time chatting to all the teenagers and mums that she saw and spread so many smiles with her makeovers, warmth, fun and kindness. One mum emotionally told us, “You have created something so powerful today. When your child is ill, as a mum the last person you think about is yourself. This has been the most amazing day and I’m so grateful.”

Huge thanks to fabulous Trinny and her wonderful Trinny London team for helping to spread countless smiles.

We’re celebrating our partnership with Lola’s Cupcakes, who have been a wonderful supporter to Spread a Smile for the last six years. 

Lola’s generously support our family events, where we take children, teenagers and their families to West End shows or concerts, by supplying delicious cupcakes for our guests to enjoy at our pre-show party. As one mum said to us recently, “it wouldn’t be a Spread a Smile party without Lola’s cupcakes”. For the last six years, Lola’s have also attended our winter party where they have run cupcake decorating workshops for the children. 

They have also found other innovative ways to support us including donating proceeds from water they sold over the July heatwave, Lola’s Bakery, in West Hampstead, celebrated their second birthday by donating 50p from every cake slice and cupcake sold to Spread a Smile over their birthday weekend and they recently supported a cake decorating workshop with us and WeWork through their new Create a Cake concept. 

Asher Budwig, Managing Director at Lola’s said: “We are proud to support such an amazing charity, that seeks to brighten the days of those that they visit. Here’s to another 6 years supporting Spread a Smile!”

Lucy Jackson, Chief Executive of Spread a Smile said ,”We are so grateful for the generous ongoing support from Lola’s. They consistently go above and beyond with ideas for how to support us and have helped us to spread countless smiles over the years.”

Marina Constantinou, our incredibly talented face painter, radiotherapy mask painter and Accounts Manager, was included in this year’s Happy List by The Independent. Marina was recognised for her work painting radiotherapy masks – making the process far less intimidating for children undergoing treatment by decorating their masks in designs that they choose. Designs have included football teams, Sylvanian Families, Minions and lots more. See more about the Happy List here.

We’re excited to announce that towards the end of the year, Marina will be moving roles from Accounts Manager to become Spread a Smile’s first ever Head of Art. Marina will be rolling out her talent in hospitals, with regular face painting visits as well as special 1-2-1 and group art workshops. She will also be a regular at Spread a Smile events. Marina will still be painting radiotherapy masks, and the request for bespoke masks is expected to increase.

Watch this space for regular updates about Marina’s art!

We’re absolutely delighted to have welcomed Laura Walter to the Spread a Smile team in our newly created role of Head of Operations. Laura joins us from University College Hospital (UCLH) where she was a play specialist in the radiotherapy department – and Laura had met many of our Spread a Smile families already. Laura has also recently completed a masters degree in Child Life and Paediatric Psychosocial Care and has a postgraduate diploma in Childhood Bereavement.

Laura’s role at UCLH involved helping children, young people and their families to feel safe and comfortable in the radiotherapy environment and help them understand and cope with their daily treatment. Laura says, “I was very fortunate to be able to build long-term relationships with patients and their families and to bring fun and recreation into the hospital environment as much as possible.”

Laura first met the Spread a Smile team in 2013, soon after the charity was founded. Laura says, “I instantly saw the incredible benefits for the patients and families I was  working with in radiotherapy. They helped me out so much by bringing entertainers and therapy dogs to visit children and young people during our busy clinic days, where patients can be waiting for very long periods of time and my colleague and I would be very busy working with new patients. Many of my patients and their families also got to benefit from the amazing VIP days out. It was such a treat to be able to offer these experiences to patients as it gave them a real lift, and, as the whole family was included, it allowed them to spend quality time together, which was essential during such a difficult time.

“It has been such a privilege to have worked so closely with Spread a Smile since the beginning and it seemed like the perfect fit to join the team when the opportunity arose. It’s a real honour to be given this exciting opportunity. Everyone at Spread a Smile is extremely passionate and dedicated to improving the experience for children and young people facing illness and hospitalisation, and this is evident in everything the charity does. Spread a Smile values professionalism, but still manages to keep that personal touch for parents, families and hospital staff, which is so important, especially as the charity grows and develops. I’ll be leading on service delivery within the NHS. I’ll be looking at how we currently deliver our service and how we can expand and improve in our existing hospitals, as well as help to expand into new hospitals so we can support even more children, young people and families within the greater London area. I’ll also be helping to implement new projects and initiatives and be a part of a research study that will be conducted to measure the impact we’re having on our service users.

“I’m currently working on building relationships with additional London hospitals with a view to sending our entertainers there in the future. I’d also like to develop a bespoke individual referrals pathway to support patients and families who could benefit from one-on-one visits in hospital. For example, patients receiving palliative care or patients who have been in hospital for long periods of time and really need a pick-me-up! Although we already do a little bit of this, I would really like to increase this service as I’ve seen first-hand the benefits this can have for patients.”

Joubi, the boutique jewellery brand, has collaborated with us to create a gorgeous necklace featuring a colourful smiley face motif. The necklace is available in either rose gold, yellow gold or white rhodium plating. All profits from the sale of the necklace will be generously donated to Spread a Smile.