News

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.

We were delighted to help children and teenagers in hospital celebrate Diwali this week with beautiful window designs and special content created for Smile TV.

Jackie Ambrose, Health Play Specialist Team Coordinator at King’s College Hospital said, “We have had a lovely afternoon celebrating Diwali. We enjoyed the Diwali singing and storytelling on smile TV. The art designs are amazing and I am not going to take them down for a while. So beautiful to look at.”

Please see a selection of our Diwali art below:

Check out our Diwali films by visiting Smile TV.

Despite the ongoing restrictions, our wonderful supporters have been busy fundraising in their communities on our behalf and we are delighted to share a selection of the fun and creative ways they have been helping to spread smiles over the past few months.  You are all making a positive and measurable difference to the lives of seriously ill children isolating in hospital at this time.  Thank you all so much. We are always thrilled to support your efforts so please do be in touch if you have a fundraising idea – fundraising@spreadasmile.org 

• Sultana Begum and her son wanted to give back to Spread a Smile and organised a cycling challenge for the children of their friends and family, raising £2,184  We entertained her son in hospital and everyone wanted to show him and the charity their support.  Sultana explained, ‘”This is a huge leap for him, fighting back from the crippling effects of chemotherapy. Through this dark and difficult time Spread a Smile was a shining light for us to help lift up our spirits and make the pain a little easier.”  Thank you so much to all the children who took part, you are amazing.
• The Hibberd family hosted a charity golf day in memory of their son, Louie.  Friends and family were out in force for a wonderful day of sport and companionship and raised more than £10,000.
• SFC Academy adopted Spread a Smile as their charity of the year.  The Hertfordshire based football academy is attended by more than 100 young players, who will all be sporting the Spread a Smile logo on the front of their strip this season.
• Override, a brand new spin studio in Woodside Park, North London set cyclists the challenge to cycle the distance between the studio and Great Ormond Street Hospital and back.  More than 50 cyclists took part, raising more than £500.
• Aran Char and 13 of his amazing friends – Alvin, Leila, Joseph, Tess, George, Max, Joe, Eleanor, Eddie, Willow, Miles, Sam and Lucia took on the ultimate challenge for any pre-teen by going Device Free for 48 hours, raising £880.  Well done for making it through.
• Friends of Sam Hanson, including his brother, Rhys, Jude, Josh, Teddy, Lois and Maeve, became ‘legends’ by completing an extreme obstacle course in Black Park, Buckinghamshire.
• Nine year old, Mia Simpson, cut her beautiful hair and raised £213, in memory of her friend, Vanessa Moss who we entertained in hospital.  Everyone was very interested in why Mia had chosen Spread a Smile to benefit from her fundraiser and she took the time to tell each and every one of them about our work.  Well done Mia.