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Hartley’s, the UK’s no. 1 jelly brand, is proud to announce its partnership with the amazing charity, Spread a Smile. The charity brings joy and laughter to seriously ill and hospitalised children and their families during intensive treatment and extended hospital stays.  Every year they spread smiles to thousands of children and teenagers under the care of their NHS hospital partners through entertainer visits, outings & events & art initiatives.

The two year partnership will help increase awareness of Spread a Smile, raise money to ensure their amazing work can continue, and ultimately brighten the lives of even more seriously ill children and their families throughout the UK. With spreading smiles being at the heart of everything both brands do, the link up felt like the perfect fit.

The first look at the partnership can be seen across Hartley’s jelly pots, which are in supermarkets now and for the next three months. The multipacks feature two images of children enjoying a Spread a Smile entertainer visit, one from a fairy and the other a magician and the smiles on their faces say it all*.

On top of this, Hartley’s have committed to donate a minimum of £50,000 to the charity through the sale of these marked packs but have a desire to raise even more! This donation will enable Spread a Smile to support more seriously ill and hospitalised children through its growing network of NHS hospital partners throughout the UK.

In celebration of the launch, Hartley’s and Spread a Smile are kicking off with  ‘Jelly Week’ across the first week of May. This week will be full of jelly related activities for the children in hospital to enjoy, such as jelly art, a jelly escape room and jelly play (all delivered virtually) as well as a delivery of more than 1,000 strawberry balloons and jelly pots – one for every child across the charity’s hospital partners.

David Atkinson, Managing Director at Hartley’s says: “The partnership between Hartley’s and Spread a Smile is something that we are really proud of as a business. It’s brilliant that Hartley’s can use its national presence to take the “Spread a Smile” charity into hundreds of stores and millions of households. All to help highlight the fantastic work that is done by “Spread a Smile” in our nation’s hospitals. Hartley’s Jelly has always been about bringing a bit of wobbly fun, it is wonderful that we can help light up some faces with smiles for those in hospital who need it most. We look forward to growing both our corporate and brand partnerships over time.”

Lucy Jackson, CEO of Spread a Smile responded, “We are more than delighted to be partnering with Hartley’s. It is such a brilliant brand fit all round and I know together, we will be able to spread many more smiles to seriously ill and hospitalised children. Both the awareness and the funds this collaboration will bring to Spread a Smile will be transformative to our organisation and we are incredibly grateful for this support and this opportunity.”

Look out for our marked packs that come in 4 different varieties, Strawberry, Raspberry, Strawberry No Added Sugar and Raspberry No Added Sugar.

Pictures from Jelly Week:

Spread a Smile, the children’s hospital entertainment charity, is thrilled to announce that, thanks to its partners, Bregal Milestone, it will be further supporting seriously ill and hospitalised children through the provision of digital devices.  More than 40 iPads have been distributed to play specialist teams across the charity’s network of hospital partners which will be used to distract children during extended hospital stays and treatment and more significantly during lockdown, increase their connectivity with family and friends.

Lucy Jackson, Chief Executive of Spread a Smile, said, “We’re so grateful to everyone at Bregal Milestone for their commitment to increasing digital access for hospitalised children, helping to break down the digital divide and spreading smiles.  This last year has highlighted just how important it is to the wellbeing of children isolating in hospital to maintain their connection with friends and family at home.  Sadly, so many children do not have access to their own devices.  These iPads will enable them to maintain those connections as well as enjoy a host of educational apps and games plus Spread a Smile’s virtual entertainer visits and Smile TV.”

The iPads come at a critical time.  Hospital lockdown restrictions will continue for the foreseeable future meaning communal play spaces remain closed, children are confined to their beds and restricted to only one parent visitor.  Over the last year Spread a Smile has transformed its service delivery to ensure it could continue to support children by providing a range of digital entertainment and play options including virtual one to one entertainer visits, group sessions, activity days, after school clubs and Smile TV – an entertainment channel filled with videos and clips from our entertainers and famous faces.

Jan Bruennler, Philippe Lautenberg and Cyrus Shey, Managing Partners at Bregal Milestone, said, “The entire team at Bregal Milestone is pleased to have partnered with Spread a Smile and IT providers, Arkphire to give children in hospital these new tablets during Covid-19. In these times of strict isolation, we hope these tablets will allow children in hospital to stay connected to their loved ones, to enjoy Spread a Smile’s entertainment and to feel much love and companionship from friends, family and Spread a Smile.”

Hayley Gilburt, Senior Play Specialist at St George’s Hospital, said, “We’re so happy with our brand new iPads from Spread a Smile. They arrived setup with lots of games for our patients to play. This is so helpful when distracting patients during painful and scary procedures. They also provide a great way for our patients to access all sorts of virtual entertainment and activities put on by Spread a Smile. We have been enjoying some fantastic magic shows, balloon modelling, art sessions and much more with them.” 

The iPads are all on a managed system which means they are come preloaded with age-appropriate games, educational and communications apps and allows the charity to upload new games and apps to meet with growing demand.  They have been delivered along with branded shockproof cases to GOSH, UCLH, St Mary’s Hospital, St George’s Hospital, The Royal Brompton, Evelina Children’s Hospital, Kings College Hospital, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and Southampton Hospital.

At a time when accessing digital services couldn’t be more important, we are delighted to be working with the Good Things Foundation and BBC Children in Need on the Everyone Connected project – an initiative that aims to tackle digital exclusion and increase digital access to disadvantaged families throughout the UK.

Spread a Smile was allocated 50 tablets (each with six months free wifi access) which we have given to families of seriously ill and hospitalised children who did not have their own devices.  Our involvement with the project and its impact were recently highlighted by Children in Need.

All tablets have now been allocated to families with thanks to our NHS Hospital Partners.

Please Click HERE to watch Lucy Jackson’s interview regarding the Everyone Connected initiative

For further details on how Children in Need is tackling ditial exclusion please Click Here

On Sunday 11 April, Spread a Smile marked our 8th birthday and we wanted to make everyone smile.

The activities began with cake decorating workshops run by our friends from Lola’s Cupcakes. The workshops were offered to children and teenagers spending long periods of time isolating in hospital at both GOSH and UCLH. They helped to ease the boredom and monotony that children experience during long hospital stays. The workshops were also a much-needed opportunity for patients to socialise together virtually.

We also delivered a zoo-ful of Walking Pet Balloons to seriously ill children and teenagers in our NHS partner hospitals. We’re delighted to see the gorgeous smiles that these animals have spread.

Tina Halton, Play Service Lead at St Mary’s Hospital, said, “We were thrilled with the delivery of walking pet balloons. It’s been a long and challenging winter and this has brightened up the hospital environment for our young patients. These balloons provide a much needed distraction from difficult hospital admissions and treatment and have helped to decrease anxiety and make the overall hospital experience more positive.”

How do you unite colleagues working in London and New York?  You make them walk/run the distance in between, all 3,459 miles!

We are thrilled to be working with the team at specialist recruitment company, TritonExec on their #TEmilesintosmiles challenge this April with an ambitious target of £10,000.

Ben Graham, Partner at TritonExec said, “We are honoured that Spread a Smile is our affiliated charity. The work they do is so inspiring and means so much to many seriously ill children and their families. Like TritonExec, Spread a Smile is boutique – meaning it may not be as well known as other larger charities and we want to do all we can to help promote their incredible dedication so more people are aware of how amazing they are as well as do everything in our power to raise as much money for them as possible.”

A big thank you to their teams on both sides of the Atlantic for not only taking on such a colossal challenge but also for nominated us as their charity partner of the year.

We look forward to working with such an energic and positive team.

To read more about TritonExec’s fundraising challenge please CLICK HERE

WWCS has nominated Spread a Smile as its charity partner.

The team at London-based IT support & consultancy brings new skills and focus and is already working with us on joint projects and fundraising plans, including a 24-hour gaming marathon and skydive.

Katie Bain, Operations Manager at WWCS, said, “It’s easy to underestimate the impact a stay in hospital (of any length) has on a child. The amazing work that Spread A Smile does brings happiness, laughter and a welcome distraction to children and their families in hospital. It is an invaluable resource and a break from the often challenging circumstances they find themselves in. This is why the staff at WWCS voted unanimously, and are proud to partner with Spread A Smile.”

We’re incredibly grateful for all their ideas and support and delighted to be working with such a proactive company.

Holidays can be particularly difficult for our children and families but thanks to the generous donations of our supporters we were able to spread lots of chocolatey smiles this Easter.

We created an online egg hunt where children worked in virtual teams to solve a series of puzzles to receive their chocolate reward, hosted a series of art & craft activity days for children and teenagers and delivered more than 1,000 eggs to children under the care of our NHS hospital partners.

Huge thanks to everyone who fundriased and/or donated to our Easter egg wish list, including Hain Daniels Group, ICBC Standard Bank London, Morrisons Chalk Farm, Sainsbury’s Camden and Tesco.

We also ran a Easter card making virtual workshop for seriously ill children and their siblings. We were delighted to see some of the lovely creations.

During the week following Easter we ran activity days for children in hospital as well as those who are shielding at home. The days included art workshops and brownie baking as well as a Wild Science animal show. One mum told us, “Our daughter is in and out of GOSH for the next month and has another operation coming up so we are laying low, that means other than going for long walks we have been very boring. Thank you for making today a little more exciting for the children, they loved it!”

The Royal Brompton Hospital, Chelsea has become our latest NHS hospital partner.  As such, from earlier this month, children and teenagers being treated at the hospital’s specialist centre for the treatment of heart and lung diseases have had full access to our services.

Maxine Ovens, Play Services Manager at The Royal Brompton, said, “Spread a Smile’s virtual sessions have been an incredible resource, particularly at a time when access to real life activities has been limited. Spread a Smile have been able to provide our patients with a range of virtual sessions from art to magicians, and are so flexible and supportive to each individual patient’s specific needs. We’ve had such wonderful feedback from our patients and they always seem to finish the session with a smile! Some of our more regular patients now come to us asking to book a session. Nothing is too much trouble for Spread a Smile. They’re always willing to help support our patients and really go that extra mile to provide a wonderful experience.”

Radiotherapy can be incredibly frightening and traumatic for young patients. For those with brain, head and/or neck cancer, they require masks to hold their heads in position for targeted treatment. Since early 2021 we have been involved with a new initiative at The Royal Marsden Hospital, Sutton, which aims to reduce the anxieties of young children in treatment of head, brain and neck cancers by creating mini radiotherapy masks for their favourite toy.  The mini masks and toys are then used to demonstrate what will happen during their treatment.  Similar to the children’s own masks, our talented Spread Smile artist then hand-paints the mini masks with children’s choice of favourite superhero, TV character or their toy’s original features.

Laura Walter, Director of Services at Spread a Smile explains, “Personalising masks makes them less clinical and the radiotherapy process less frightening.  They also help parents talk more openly with their children about their condition and help children to be more accepting of treatment.  It’s an incredibly important part of Spread a Smile’s work “.

In our April Fundraising Round Up we wanted to give a big shout out to our incredible fundraisers who, over the past month, have been busy helping us to spread smiles.  Sharron Marsh and her daughter, Caitlin (pictured) raffled a Fortnum & Mason Hamper raising over £1,100 and Year 6 at Hymers School in Hull raised £2,259 from their sponsored 10-Day Challenge.

Special mention to Hannah and Tom Jarvis and their amazing little boy, Ben, for their incredible fundraising efforts which have to date raised more than £22,000 for three charities who supported Ben through recent treatment, including Spread a Smile.  In their own words,“Mr Magic would make Ben howl with laughter during the darkest chemo days. Real belly-deep laughs that are pure joy to hear and lift your heart. No child should have to go through the sort of treatment plans that cancers like Ben’s require. But, if they do, it should be with the support of people like the Spread a Smile team – because it’s the smiles and laughter that get them through it.”  For more information on Hannah & Tom’s fundraising please Click Here