News

Congratulations to Joanna Oldbridge and her soul mates who completed a spooktacular 26 miles (42 km) Halloween Walk on Saturday.

Joanna chose to fundraise for Spread a Smile after her friend Martin, a magician for the charity, talked so passionately about the difference our services made to children in hospital and she wanted to help. 

Joanna said; “The event was fabulous. I walked with my team “Solemates”, which includes my oldest friend of 50 years, Marianne Edwards, my sister, Deborah Beresford-Moore and our friend Jane Griffin. We’ve walked several challenges together over the years – the weather was amazing for this one and we all had fun dressing up!”.

If you fancy taking on the 2022 Halloween Walk check out the Ultra Challenger calendar in our link here.  Spread a Smile will pay for 50% of your entry fee.

This week, over half term, we’ve been entertaining children in hospital and at home with a variety of Halloween-themed activities.

Every day we’ve hosted a different virtual entertainer session including ghostly art workshops, spooky storytelling, TikTok dance tutorials, festive makeup workshop and the pumpkin patch challenge. 

Our 24/7 entertainment channel, Smile TV, featured a host of art & craft activities including pumpkin drawing and origami ghost making plus Mr Magic mesmerised us all with card tricks, bottle magic and some hysterical Halloween howlers.

We also delivered Halloween treat packs containing glow sticks, games, treats and the all-important pots of slime to children across all our NHS hospital partners.  

“The Spread a Smile Halloween packs put smiles on so many children’s faces at the hospital. They were tailored perfectly to suit a range of ages. When the word slime was mentioned, the patients’ faces lit up.” Jamie-Lee Phillipson, Hospital Play Lead at Nottingham Children’s Hospital

To watch our entertainers in action go to the SMILE TV here. 

On 20 October 2021 we were thrilled to invite ten children and their families to the Lyceum Theatre for a performance of The Lion King.  The visit also included a pre show reception in the Disney Ambassador Lounge where everyone enjoyed Spread a Smile’s hospitality and meeting our entertainers Magic Paul, Mr Magic, Fairy Ellie and Fairy Jasmin plus a very special video message from The Lion King cast. With thanks to Disney, ICAP, Lola’s and all the team and cast at The Lion King for their ongoing support and for making the outing so special for all our families.  

See here a wonderful collection of images from the brilliant outing.

We are delighted to announce a new and exciting collaboration with the multi-award winning challenge company Charity Challenge who operates a massive portfolio of challenge events close to home in the UK and around the world, from the Amazon to the Zambezi, from Albania to Zambia. You can trek, climb, ride or raft your way along one of these adventurous challenges and raise vital funds for Spread a Smile. Whether it’s the National Three Peaks Challenge in the UK, climbing Kilimanjaro or trekking through the Sahara desert please take a look at what’s on offer HERE.

A big well done to Charlie Hardcastle and Tracy Brown who did a great challenge at the Great South Run last Sunday. Charlie and Tracy said:

“We’re running Great South Run to raise money for Spread a Smile because they have done so much for Lily and her family.” Read about Lily here

Their support really does make such a difference to so many brave children just like Lily.

Charlie Cox and Tracy Brown at The Great South Run

Huge congratulations to the team from our partners, Hain Daniels for their success in the 2021 Cambridge Half Marathon in aid of Spread a Smile. 

The predominantly flat course through one of the UK’s most beautiful cities and past countless historic landmarks led to many achieving their personal goals. 

Thank you to David, Dan, Chris, James, Matt, Adam & Lora – you are all Smile Heroes. 

To join the mailing list & pre-register for the 2022 Cambridge Half Marathon please CLICK HERE

The team is so delighted to return to face-to-face visits at some of our NHS hospital partners that we haven’t visited since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Patients have been more isolated than ever before and most professionals they see in the hospital are medical. Face-to-face visits with Spread a Smile entertainers provide an important distraction from treatment and normalise the hospital environment, allowing patients to connect, relax and be children rather than patients.

We were so happy to include a face-to-face hospital visit with our brand new therapy dog, Smartie who visited children at St Mary’s Hospital. We also visited King’s College Hospital and University College Hospital. These interactions will continue in addition to our continuous virtual entertainment.

Laura Walter, Director of Services at Spread a Smile explains below the fantastic impact a furry friend can have on the patients, families and staff on a hospital visit.

“Stroking a dog is extremely therapeutic and helps patients to feel relaxed and calm in the hospital environment. Therapy dog visits are always super popular with patients, parents and staff – giving everyone a much needed lift.” 

If your company would like to support us with more face to face visits you can click on the link here.

11-17 October was Play in Hospital Week which raises awareness of the benefits of play in the treatment of poorly children across the UK.  It is therefore was an important date in our diary too and our programme of play activities for children and teenagers under the care of our NHS partner hospitals included art, singing, dancing and makaton magic.

We received this feedback about our makaton magic session from Ellisa Butcher, Learning Disability Link Senior Play Worker:

“I just wanted to say thank you so much for the magic makaton Zoom. It was absolutely fantastic and so lovely to have a Zoom so accessible and appropriate for some of our patients with additional needs and communication needs.  I know the patients all loved it and found it very engaging. I have also had several comments about how fantastic Daniel was at adapting the session to be appropriate for all patients and engaging them all well.”

The image below is of Smartie the therapy dog who visited children at St Mary’s Hospital with fairy Ellie.

By encouraging feedback from our NHS partners, children and their families we continue to develop our services, identify needs and find new talent.

In addition to our fairies, magicians, musicians, artists and poet we can now also offer new ways to spread smiles to children and teenagers in hospital. New options include ventriloquism, music lessons, make up classes, riddles, wellness for teenagers, comedy and we even have a quizmaster who runs hospital sessions for older children and teenagers.

Our new entertainers are a hugely welcome addition to the team and enable us to run 56 individual, ward and hospital sessions each week.

Thirteen teams kicked off in our inaugural 5-a-side football tournament last night. Following the competitive group rounds, the tournament went to knockouts.

Congratulations to LMAC Group for winning the Cup, Opticore for the Plate and runners-up Hamilton Barnes and Blink respectively.

With thanks to all participating teams, our sponsors LMAC Group and Canary Wharf Contractors and our neighbours, Castlehaven Community Centre and Morrisons Camden for their hospitality and donations. 

To register your interest in future tournaments please contact fundraising@spreadasmile.org

We are delighted to announce that we have a new NHS hospital partner – Leicester Children’s Hospital.

From this month the Spread a Smile team and entertainers will be working with the trust’s Play Specialist Team to provide enhanced play activities and entertainment to children under the hospital’s care.  Activities so far have included virtual entertainer visits and treat drops.

Sally Shepherd, Leicester Children’s Hospital Play Coordinator, said: “As a play team working through the pandemic we have faced huge challenges in the way we work with our children and young people. It has been more important than ever to create positive experiences for our patients and their families. The support that we have received from Spread a Smile to do this has been amazing. 

“The Spread a Smile team arranged sessions that are tailored to the patients’ ages, level of understanding and individual needs and it has been so rewarding to see the positive impact that they have during and after a session. We are so grateful to Spread a Smile for the wonderful work that they do – it has made our job so much easier!”

Rosemarie, Teddy’s mum, said, “The virtual sessions have been an amazing distraction for when Teddy (aged 6) hasn’t had the energy to get out of bed and play with his toys. His treatment has been intense and these sessions have made him smile!”