Author: Lorraine

The National Three Peaks Challenge is a well-known endurance event that involves running, cycling, or driving between the trailheads of the three highest peaks in the United Kingdom.

Last Saturday not only did Ryan take on the 3 Peaks challenge, he decided he would be running every peak and driving himself to each location afterwards!

Setting off under the cover of darkness, Ryan took on each mountain in its turn, the first was Snowdon with a height of 1,085 metres (3,560 ft), this was followed by Scafell Pike at 978 metres (3,209 ft) and then finally off to Scotland to conquer Ben Nevis at just 1,345 metres (4,413 ft)!

Ryan totted up 22 hours of driving covering 1,000 miles, whilst running over 27 miles taking in 3 of the tallest mountains in the UK.

Supporting Milly’s Smiles was an easy choice for Ryan as he has seen first hand the impact our Milly Bags have, after a friends daughter, Nori was diagnosed with Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome just over 12 months ago. Millys Smiles supported Nori and her family when she was admitted onto ward 86 at The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.

Ryan was hoping to raise a total of £1,000 but has by far exceeded his original target and has managed to raise a huge £2755.00 which is just incredible.

Huge thank you to Ryan for taking on such an awesome challenge for us, we are so grateful for your incredible support and we absolutely love the amazing photos.

We send all our love and support to beautiful Nori and her family as they continue their cancer journey.

A few months ago I received a call from Polly who is a Play Leader on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, at The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.

Polly was aware that we used to provide the unit with a Journal to chart the child’s progress throughout the transplant process. We did this for a trial period of a few months and then they fizzled out for various reasons.

Polly was keen to see if we would be willing to consider supplying the journals again, and we obviously said yes! Since the phone call from Polly, we have spent time revamping the original journals adding extra sections in and then arranging the printing.

Today we proudly took them over to the ward, and handed them over to Polly who was thrilled with them, and very excited to start handing them out.

Thank you to our delivery team for the day Graeme and new co-pilot Mandy!

What a weekend we have had at Milly’s Smiles!

Our Ball, which was sponsored by GR8 Sports was a huge success, and I think it is fair to say everyone had a fabulous time. People’s costumes were amazing, it was brilliant to see so many people embracing our Grease theme.

On arrival guests were greeted by an incredible dance performance from Halcyon Creative Kids who performed some spectacular Grease numbers and got everyone into the Grease mood!

Our host for the evening was Stephen Lowe and he was outstanding, he had the room rocking from the minute people walked in, he totally exceeded our expectations in hosting the evening for us.

We had a great DJ – Skippy Events Services, he ensured the dance floor was never empty and was absolutely brilliant, we feel very lucky to have had him for the night.

We loved every second of the night, however it was only possible because of the incredible hard work of many people.

A huge massive thank you to Lorraine 2, for all her hard work in organising the Ball, for her incredible attention to detail in ensuring absolutely everything was planned right down to the last little detail. Lorraine 2 has volunteered her time so selflessly over the last few years and has worked so hard for us, we are beyond grateful and feel very lucky to have her on our team.

Thank you also to Graeme for his hard work in putting everything together, and keeping everything running to plan, to Rick Wilson for designing all our artwork and posters, to Stephen Redfern Photography for donating his photo booth for the evening, to Ewood Florist for the beautiful flower displays, to The Cardboard Box Company for the donation of our photo signs, and finally to The Dunkenhalgh who went above and beyond on the night to ensure everything ran smoothly.

We are thrilled to have made an amazing amount of £8595.87, which will go a long way towards supporting children and their families when they are admitted into hospital following a new diagnosis of a cancer related illness.

We were recently invited to a party hosted by The Cooper Hands where they presented cheques to charities who supported their son Hughie, following his diagnosis of ALL (acute lymphoblastic lymphoma) in December of last year.

Hughie’s family have been doing some incredible challenges to raise this money, including walking all the way from Stockport to London!

We were thrilled to be one of their chosen charities and very humbled to receive a cheque for £3,000 on the night. It was especially lovely to see other wonderful charities there too, @emmieskitchen_mcr and Kidscan, who also do amazing work.

As well as receiving a cheque we were thrilled to be presented with 35 very gorgeous elephants knitted by Hughies grandma and her knitting team at Disley WI.

Thank you so much to everyone involved, we are so grateful for the donation and the elephants and the money will go towards supporting children newly diagnosed with cancer with our Milly Bags.

We send all our love to Hughie and his family with his ongoing treatment.

For our SOULS bereavement group in October we were thrilled to be joined by Steph who came along to teach up how to decorate cup cakes for Halloween! Steph brought along 30 freshly baked buns, fondant icing and buttercream icing.

The group created some fabulous creations and they definitely tasted as good as they looked.

Our groups are always fun to attend and one lady summed it up so perfectly:

“It’s a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning, typically beginning with coffee and pastries. This group offers an ideal space where it is ok to talk about your person, your grief, or absorb yourself in the craft activities, whatever you feel comfortable with. It is a good place to meet people who have a shared experience.”

We were incredibly busy last week finalising the arrangements for our Ball and for Milly’s Walk.

We have also had 2 deliveries leave the unit, tuesday Graeme headed over to The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital with 20 more Milly Bags, and then on Wednesday we loaded up a pallet with 15 Milly Bags, ready for Nottingham Children’s Hospital.

On average we are now delivering 100 Milly Bags every 8 weeks which is around 50% more than this time last year.

We are so proud of being able to support hospitals across the country with our Milly Bags and knowing that we are making a difference at one of the worst times imaginable for parents and children really does mean the world to us.

We sent off our second pallet of Milly Bags on Wednesday and this time the destination was Kamran’s Ward at Oxford Children’s Hospital.

It makes more sense to send via pallet for many reasons but mainly cost wise, however it does come with some teething problems, but thankfully so far we have managed to overcome them all!

This is our second delivery to Oxford and we have already had some amazing feedback from families – we are truly grateful to be able to make a difference every day.

We are thrilled to be hosting a ladies Fashion Show with Afternoon Tea at Accrington Stanley Wham Stadium in the Coleys and 1968 Lounge on Saturday 1st March 2025 at 1pm.

Tickets will go on sale early January 2025 – watch this space!

Last week we had 3 lovely volunteers come to spend the day making up our Milly Bags. One of the ladies who came, Lucy, knows just how vital our bags are, as her daughter received a bag when she was admitted onto Ward 86 at The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.

Lucy, Jess and Alice did a fantastic job, and along with packing 60 Milly Bags, they also brought donations of toiletries, baby wipes, fruit pastels and bath towels, which helps us enormously.

It is always such a pleasure to have people volunteer for a few hours with us, and we loved having them with us for the day. Thank you so much ladies, you were brilliant, it was lovely getting to know you all and thank you for helping us to make a difference to children newly diagnosed with cancer.

The bags are all set for delivery in the coming weeks.