News

On Sunday 20 December, Jez Allinson, aka the Running Stormtrooper, has completed his 2020 challenge of running 1,000 miles and fundraising for Spread a Smile and Make a Wish, all whilst dressed in full Stormtrooper armour.

Despite it not being the finish he’d planned (to run from Elstree Studios to Pinewood Studies), due to the new covid restrictions, Jez ran the last 18 miles of his 2020 challenge around his RAF base, RAF Benson.

Thank you so much to Jez for this amazing achievement which will help spread smiles to seriously ill children and teenagers.

To find out more and to donate to Jez’s fundraising efforts, please visit https://stormtrooperrun.com/ 

Our wonderful supporters have been continuing to fundraise for us, ensuring that we will be spreading smiles to seriously ill children and teenagers in hospital. Thank you to everyone who has fundraised and donated, it means so much to us and to the children and their families who need the smiles and joy now more than ever.

If you’re interested to find out how you can fundraise for Spread a Smile, please email fundraising@spreadasmile.org

• The wonderful Pass the Parcel team fundraised for and made up 300 spectacular gift parcels to give to seriously ill children in hospital this festive season. We went with the team to deliver some of the bags to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
• Yavneh College in Borehamwood has chosen Spread a Smile as one of it’s charities this year. We were delighted to receive some beautiful bracelets made by some of the pupils. They also donated lots of fantastic gifts for our Gift Drive.
• Aimee Johnson baked, packaged and sold delicious tea boxes as part of her bat mitzvah preparations. Aimee has donated all of the money raised to Spread a Smile.
• The fabulous team at ebloggers has raised a wonderful £1,352 for Spread a Smile, with thanks to Laura Wills (aka The Fashion Bug Blog) and Louise Roe.
• Alcester Grammar School raised over £650 for Spread a Smile with a non-uniform day.
• Our wonderful supporter, ICBC, held a Christmas raffle in aid of Spread a Smile.

Our wonderful supporter, Lola’s Cupcakes, has spread Christmas joy and smiles with virtual cake decorating workshops at both Great Ormond Street Hospital and at UCLH.

Children and teenagers at both hospitals were sent cake and cupcake decorating kits and Lola’s led a virtual decorating session to help the participants create their stunning, seasonal Christmas designs.

One mum said, “We are so thankful for the great time we had at Great Ormond Street Hospital decorating these Christmas cupcakes from Spread a Smile and Lola’s. These kind of surprises cheer up the days. Merry Christmas everyone!”

To find out more about Lola’s decorating kits, click here.

On Sunday 13 December we were delighted to spread Chanukah smiles with the team at Camp Simcha. Together, we ran an hour of magic and art entertainment to families supported by both charities. 17 families joined the virtual session.

The magic session was taken by our fabulous magician, Sacha, and the art was run by our wonderful artist, Belinda.

It was a fantastic afternoon and a great way to celebrate Chanukah.

For more Chanukah fun, please visit Smile TV.

Spread a Smile’s We Will Be There Campaign took place over 9-10 December and we were blown away by the phenomenal support it received. The aim was to raise £250,000 in a 36 hour online fundraising appeal, and, currently, the total stands at an incredible £346,787. The money raised will help us to continue our virtual and face to face services in 2021 as well as provide an fun-packed Christmas programme for seriously ill children in hospital.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the cancellation of so many events and activities had severely impacted our income and this fundraiser has helped to make-up for the shortfall in funds.

We made a short film for the campaign all about Charlotte and told by her dad, Trevor. We’ve have been privileged to entertain Charlotte and her sister over the last seven years.

Life for a seriously ill child is always tough but never more so than at Christmas when families should be together. This year, many hospitalised children will be too unwell or too at risk to go home and will spend December confined to their hospital beds and restricted to just one visitor – making what should be the happiest time of the year unimaginably hard for them, their parents and siblings.   Spread a Smile is one of the few charities increasing its presence in hospitals this December and we will be delivering much needed joy and spreading smiles to more than 4,500 serious ill children at Christmas plus hundreds more every month into 2021 and while lockdown restrictions remain in place.

Our Christmas campaign will fund an action packed programme of activity from mid-December including a virtual Santa’s Grotto, festive virtual visits with our wonderful entertainers, virtual art workshops, new video content on Smile TV (including the screening of a pantomime), entertainment on Christmas and New Year’s Day and the delivery of 1,450 presents to children in hospital and to those isolating at home.

Funds raised will also support our virtual entertainer visits and Smile TV in 2021 to seriously ill children under the care of our nine hospital and hospice partnerships. Launched in March 2020, this digital entertainment has been of invaluable support to children during lockdown, helping to distract them from pain and treatment, increasing their treatment compliancy and, most importantly, enabling them to remain connected to family life through positive shared interactions.  Our virtual visits have also allowed us to extend the reach and impact to the most isolated and sick children, spreading joy at a time when parents believed that nothing could make their child smile.

There’s still time to donate to the campaign. If you’d like to make a donation please click here.

We’re so thrilled that this year, Santa has agreed to spread smiles and arrange virtual Grotto visits to the children that Spread a Smile entertains.

Santa will be virtually visiting children who are in our partner hospitals for the two weeks before Christmas. His days will be filled meeting children on the wards where Spread a Smile entertains, and he will be joined in his Lapland Grotto by different Spread a Smile entertainers. He will also by visited by some of the families where their children are shielding at home. We’re expecting Santa to visit around 200 seriously ill children over the two week period.

Lucy Jackson, Chief Executive of Spread a Smile, was interviewed on BBC News together with the wonderful Hillyer family. We’ve been entertaining Austin throughout the pandemic, and he and his twin sister, Annabel, made a virtual visit to Santa’s Grotto last week.

We are incredibly proud to be the charitable partner of the award winning Masthaven Bank.  Everyone at the bank has been incredibly supportive of Spread a Smile and, even during the pandemic, has gone out of their way to ensure we can continue to spread smiles.  Not only have employees fundraised throughout the year but they also donated their Christmas Party fund to us making them our first official Xmas Party Heroes.

Two employees in particular pulled out all the stops for Spread a Smile.  Jason Finch and Matt Newman took on the challenge of running 2,020 miles in 2020 and achieved their goal through a mix of organised runs, solo runs and even laps around their own back gardens.  But that wasn’t enough!  In support of our appeal, they were joined by their colleague, Honor Sharp in a 36 mile run around our London hospital partners which they completed in eight hours on Thursday 10 December.  Guys – we cannot thank you enough for your energy and enthusiasm and to everyone of your colleagues and friends who sponsored you, thank you.  We hope you have a relaxing Christmas and New Year.

Following the phenomenal response to our Gift Drive we’ve had a wonderful time delivering gifts to 1,200 children in hospital and over 200 more children isolating at home.

We’ve had a fabulous weekend (5 & 6 December) delivering our Smile Hampers to seriously ill children and teenagers under the care of our hospital partners and who are currently shielding at home.  A fleet of black cabs from the Worshipful Company of Hackney Carriage Drivers’ Charity Trust coupled with a team of our entertainers took on Santa’s duties to deliver our hampers full of festive fun and aimed at lifting children’s spirits.   Thank you to everyone who shared their photos and stories with us.  We are so pleased the hampers made you smile.  Our gift deliveries will continue right up until Christmas Eve to more than 1,200 children who will remain in hospital over the festive period..

We would like to make a special thank you to all those individuals and companies who have so generously supported our gift drive this year including; Spinmaster, Alligator Books, The Paper Box, Hunter Price, Hamabeads, Cheatwell Games, Staedtler, Swizzels, Bastion, Hasbro, Amaze Marketing, Character Options Ltd, Ravensburger, SEGA, The Fence Club, Aurora World Ltd, Alphabet Pie, OTL Brands, Craft Buddy, Learning Resources Ltd, Rainbow Designs, Moonpig, Nutty Putty, Skinny Dip, The Entertainer, Little Gold Collection, Egg Nogg, Gold Brothers, Mad Science & Pass the Parcel.

The children have received the most amazing gifts and the impact of your support is evident in the many photos and messages of thanks we have received.

“Thank you so very much for the hampers.  The kids absolutely love them.  Laura singing ‘Let it Go’ on the doorstep was amazing and put a smile on all our faces especially when it has been a challenging time and my son undergoing treatment in the midst of it all.” 

We’re delighted that we’ll be celebrating the festival of Chanukah this year by co-hosting a virtual party with Camp Simcha.

On Sunday 13th December from 3-4pm, we’ll be running a fun-filled hour of magic and art for all the children that both charities support.

To register, please email smile@spreadasmile.org to book your place!

We can’t wait to spread Chanukah smiles.

We’re all so proud and sending huge congratulations to Spread a Smile’s fabulous magician, Martin Rees, for setting a new World Record. As part of Guinness World Record Day 2020, Martin set a new record for the most magic tricks performed in three minutes underwater with an incredible 20 tricks! The previous record, which had been held for 11 years, was for 13 tricks. Martin completed his record on the underwater stage at Pinewood Studios.

Watch Martin’s record here.

Martin has dedicated his record to the children and families of Spread a Smile who inspire him daily.