News

Our Summer Party is back!

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Exciting news! The Spread a Smile Summer Party for the families we support will return to Coram’s Fields, London, on Thursday 25 July.

This very special free event will welcome hundreds of children and young people supported by Spread a Smile

along with their siblings, families and carers to spend a magical fun filled day with us. With stalls, games, activities, singing, music, magic, balloons, bubbles, delicious food and so much more, the aim is to provide an opportunity for families to enjoy a day out together, away from the pressures of treatment and illness.

Register here

Laura Walter, Director of Services for Spread a Smile said, “The whole Spread a Smile team is getting so excited for our annual Summer Party as it’s a real highlight of the year for everyone involved. As usual we’ve been working hard to make sure this year’s event is the biggest and best yet, with amazing support from some of our partners. There’ll be slime making with Slime Planet, a LEGO station, games and Play-Doh fun with Hasbro, biscuit decorating with McVitie’s, animal experiences with Anna’s Animals and loads of arts and crafts activities led by the Spread a Smile team and volunteers. This year we’ll also welcome our friends from Freddie’s Flowers for flower crown making, host an interactive gaming tent and be on the lookout for footballing talent with our giant inflatable football goal.

“There will be a chance to meet many of the Spread a Smile entertainers who will be there performing and spreading smiles and our VIP guests can look forward to lots of delicious treats from our wonderful friends at Lola’s cupcakes, Brigit’s Bakery, Mildred’s and the Wandering Pizza Company.

“We are looking forward to treating lots of the children and young people we support, along with their siblings and families to a very special fun day making lasting memories.”

Find out how you can support our 2024 Summer Party!

Pre-registration is required to attend, and you can sign up for free here.

Date: Thursday 25 July, 11am-3pm

Where: Coram’s Fields, 93 Guildford Street, London WC1N 1DN

Who’s it for? Families with children and young people up to the age of 18 with a long-term illness or condition and/or under ongoing care with a UK NHS hospital. We welcome siblings and family members too.

Family event for teens at Mallow

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Mallow is a 100% plant-based restaurant in the heart of London’s Borough Market and earlier this month Spread a Smile welcomed some of the families we support to the restaurant for a delicious vegan brunch.

 

The event was specifically aimed at young people over the age of 12 and a bespoke, engaging opportunity for them to enjoy themselves and meet other young people in a beautiful setting over brunch. Being a teenager in hospital and undergoing treatment for serious illness can feel extremely challenging when you have to spend long periods of time away from friends and social activities. The entertainment options often feel much more limited, and it can prove to be an extremely isolating time.

 

The brunch provided a special time for our teens to be teenagers together and it was lovely to see everyone chatting away together and spending quality time with their families.

 

As usual, we made sure our Spread a Smile entertainers brought some extra joy to the morning, with our spontaneous poet Judge the Poet sharing his talents and Rosie providing music and singing to help spread smiles.

 

Mallow is the sister venue of Mildred’s restaurants who have partnered with and supported Spread a Smile for a number of years. We are so grateful to the amazing team at mallow for making us so welcome and to everyone from Mallow and Mildred’s for going the extra mile to help provide these wonderful experiences for our families.

 

Please get in touch if you’d like to explore ways to support Spread a Smile through our creative partnership opportunities.

First International Day of Play

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Yesterday marked the first ever International Day of Play – a campaign coordinated by a network of organisations, initiated by the LEGO Group and the LEGO Foundation and designed to firmly put play back on the agenda for children everywhere.

Play opens up a whole world of possibilities. It enables children to find time and space to explore their creativity and reach their full potential. It is an essential part of childhood and is at the very heart of mental, social and emotional growth and well-being.

Every day, Spread a Smile sees the benefits of play for the children and young people we support. When a child is seriously ill, undergoing treatment and spending long periods of time in hospital, it is important that play continues to be part of their life, at a time when they can feel most isolated and vulnerable.

We are delighted that the United Nations General Assembly has adopted 11 June as an annual International Day of Play and today we celebrated in style.

Our entertainers joined forces with our friends from Hasbro to visit children and young people at some of our NHS hospital partners yesterday, encouraging group play in the communal playrooms through fun sessions and activities including board games, Play-Doh, magic, music and singing. We also visited children at their bedside and wider numbers across the country through a virtual LEGO play session online.

Laura Walter, Director of Services for Spread a Smile said, “Play and having fun are at the heart of everything we do at Spread a Smile and we know first-hand how important they are for a child’s development, particularly when they are unwell and not able to spend time with family and friends. We are delighted to be part of the first ever International Day of Play, providing ways for children in hospital to simply laugh, play and do things that all children should be able to do.”

Thank you to the LEGO Group for all their work making this day possible and to Hasbro for their continued support, giving up their time, leaving games and Play Doh for the children we met and helping us to spread smiles for the first ever International Day of Play.

To donate to ensure we can continue our vital work, please click here.

LEGO tour for families

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Last month we were delighted to take some of the amazing families supported by Spread a Smile to visit the LEGO Group’s office in London for a very special day out.

12 children and their families joined us for a fun-filled day, kindly hosted by the LEGO Group and including a tour of the offices, engaging LEGO based activities, lunch and magic from Spread a Smile Ambassador Richard Jones.

The day was a huge success with our families enjoying the chance to explore, take in some of the incredible LEGO® brick creations and find out more about the iconic bricks.

“Thank you Spread a Smile for a fabulous event and to all the LEGO London Hub team for giving their time and sharing their passion and knowledge for all things LEGO and play. We felt so very lucky to attend and experience the tour of their fantastic offices.” Claire, Mum to Eva

Experiences such as this make a huge difference to our families, providing special opportunities for togetherness and enjoyment in amongst the worries of serious illness. We are so grateful to the LEGO Group for their continued support and creativity in helping to spread smiles to the children and young people we support.

If you or your company would like to chat about how you can get involved with Spread a Smile and support our vital work, please email us at fundraising@spreadasmile.org

Children’s Welfare and Research Foundation Golf Day

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A huge thank you to our friends from the Children’s Welfare and Research Foundation for their continued support and commitment, helping us bring joy and happiness to seriously ill children and their families.

Last month, they hosted their annual Golf Day with Spread a Smile as one of their chosen charities, raising vital funds to support our work.

The Trustees of the Children’s Welfare and Research Foundation said: “We were delighted to support Spread a Smile for a second year running. Having their magicians with us at the golf day was a great way for our supporters to see the charity’s work in action. Our donation will fund Spread a Smile’s family events, giving seriously ill children and their families a memorable day out, which is a much-needed respite from their pain and treatment.”

Spread a Smile’s Chief Executive, Lucy Jackson said, “We are extremely grateful for everything the Children’s Welfare and Research Foundation is doing to ensure we can spread even more smiles to children in hospitals and hospices across the country. Spread a Smile doesn’t receive any government funding, so support such as this is vital for the continuation of our services and we can’t thank the Children’s Welfare and Research Foundation enough.”

To find out more about how you or your company can become part of the Spread a Smile family, please get in touch with the fundraising team at fundraising@spreadasmile.org

Real Estate dinner success

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Last week, the Spread a Smile Real Estate Committee hosted their fourth dinner, bringing together leading professionals from across the real estate sector for an engaging evening of good food and topical discussion.

Hosted at Uncommon’s brand new office space in Holborn, we were joined by prominent PR figure and host of the popular PropCast podcast, Andrew Teacher, alongside John Stevens, political editor of The Mirror, for an interesting discussion around of the effect of the upcoming UK and US elections on the real estate sector.

Guests also found out more about the work of Spread a Smile and the importance of their support to ensure the continuation of our work. The evening was a huge success and an innovative way of engaging friends new and old.

Lucy Jackson, Chief Executive at Spread a Smile, said “We are so grateful to all the guests who joined us and generously supported our work and we are particularly grateful to Chris Davies and his team at Uncommon for hosting us in their wonderful new office space in Holborn. Our real estate committee is a wonderful way to raise awareness and funds and to build our network of supporters.”

The Real Estate Committee is chaired by Shaun Simons, Founder of Compton and was launched in September 2023 to explore new avenues for raising funds and awareness. The Committee brings together key industry figures; Richard Fine and Dan Uzan, Brotherton, alongside James Lass, Swiss Life Asset Managers, Michael Mirelman, GRE Finance and Chris Davies, CEO, Uncommon.

We are extremely grateful to all of the Committee, our guests, speakers Andrew and John and our friends at Uncommon for their support and for helping to make this event such a success.

To find out more about the Committee or how your company could get involved with supporting Spread a Smile, please email Lucy Keith at lucykeith@spreadasmile.org.

Feeling the speed at F1 Arcade

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The Spread a Smile family events team has been busy over the past couple of months organising some brilliant, varied and exciting events for the families we support.

Earlier this month we took 13 of the seriously ill children and young people we support along with their siblings and families for an exhilarating afternoon at F1 Arcade in London.

It was brilliant to see everyone trying out the Formula 1 simulators, racing against each other and enjoying the buzz and excitement of the experience.

As always, the Spread a Smile entertainers were also on hand with magic, face painting and singing and our guests were treated to some delicious pizza and ice creams generously donated by Simply Ice Cream.

If you would like to find out more about registering for our family events, please click here.

All of our family events are free of charge for our families to attend, so if you are able to make a donation to help us continue to provide these brilliant experiences, we’d be so grateful, thank you.

Families enjoy afternoon tea at Corinthia London

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As part of our ongoing partnership with Corinthia London, two of the families we support were invited to experience the hotel’s new flower themed afternoon tea in collaboration with FLOWERBX.

“I do not have the words to say how grateful we are and how amazing today has been. I am so close to tears holding them back.”

Our guests enjoyed a wonderfully relaxed afternoon, taking time out together away from the pressures and worries of hospital appointments and treatment plans. There was also time to sit underneath the beautiful flower tree created in the foyer of the hotel by FLOWERBX to celebrate the approach of Summer and the Chelsea Flower Show.

“Thank you so, so much for today. There are no words to express our gratitude and Elsa said it was the best day. You are all such wonderful selfless people and without you all our days would be so much harder. The smile you bring to Elsa’s face with your generosity is just amazing. The staff at the Corinthia were wonderful, they could not have done more for us.” Elsa’s Mum

We are so grateful to everyone at Corinthia London for providing this wonderful opportunity for our families and making everyone so welcome. Also for collecting for Spread a Smile this month and generously donating £10 from every Afternoon Tea to Spread a Smile until 29 May.

You can read more about this wonderful initiative here.

A day to remember at The Lion King

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Spread a Smile’s theatre trips for the families of seriously ill children really are something special and last week’s trip to see The Lion King musical at the Lyceum Theatre, London was no exception.

An incredible 10 families joined us for this special treat and we made sure they were completely spoilt. With a pre-show party full of delicious pizza, snacks, face painting, magic, singing and Lola’s Cupcakes, our families were able to relax and enjoy themselves, sharing many laughs and smiles together.

The Lion King is an incredible spectacle and our guests had a wonderful time, escaping into the magic of Africa. The performance was followed by a meet and greet with some of the cast members, who generously came out to spend time with our VIP guests and building on special memories for years to come.

“Noah absolutely loved it, from the moment we stepped foot into the building we felt so very VIP – like royalty, spoilt rotten by the team at Spread a Smile. Every moment felt so magical. Noah was very excited and as soon as it started, he was mesmerised, singing along to the songs, repeating the script and wiggling away to all the beats.

“Noah was blown away during the meet and greet, he had his eyes locked in on the cast the whole time and he felt so special having pictures with them.

“Thank you so much for such a magical, enchanting VIP experience and for making us feel so very special. We had to remember to take off our invisible crowns on the way out! I’m so grateful to you and the Spread a Smile team for giving us such a special memorable experience that will be imprinted on Noah’s memory for a lifetime.” Khadijah, Noah’s Mum

A huge thank you to everyone at the Lyceum Theatre and the cast and crew for making us feel so welcome. Also to Lola’s Cupcakes for the delicious treats.

“Thank you to you and the extended team for such a wonderful day and the pure joy of experiencing the Lion King for the first time. Eva loved every minute and was so lovely to see her confidence grow since the last session to chat to everyone, you do really all make everyone feel at ease. Such wonderful memories to cherish.” Claire, Eva’s Mum

Please donate to help ensure we can continue to provide these wonderful moments of respite and joy for the seriously ill children and families we support.

Annual parent/carer survey

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Calling all parents and carers!

If your family receives our services, please take five minutes to complete our annual parent/carer survey so we can understand your needs and make sure we’re doing everything we can to support them.

Complete the survey here.

Thank you so much in advance.