In November last year, Milly’s Smiles were thrilled and honoured to receive a Lancastrian Award.
The awards are given out annually to recognise people and organisations who have made a real difference in Lancashire and are presented by Friends of Real Lancashire to celebrate Lancashire Day.
The award is a recognition of people who support their communities, people who preserve the county’s heritage, people who improve the lives of others, and people who embody the Lancastrian spirit.
Thank you to however nominated us, we feel very proud to accept this award.
November saw us making a further delivery of 20 Milly Bags to Ward 3B at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. We have been supporting the ward for 6 years and have delivered a total of 450 Milly Bags at a cost of £63,000.
It is a privilege to be able to offer this support although we wish with all our hearts that there was simply no need for our Milly Bags.
On this delivery Graeme recruited new volunteer Julie for the day, it was lovely to welcome her to the team and she did a sterling job making sure that all the bags got to the ward safely.
Last year we received a lovely message from an Alder Hey mum who told us just how much having a Milly Bag means:
“Just wanted to say a big thank you.
I am currently in Alder Hey hospital with my 7 year old daughter Mia who was formally diagnosed with leukaemia on Friday morning… we are riding the biggest rollercoaster of our lives…
We have been given one of your Milly Bags and Mia whose favourite colour is rainbow, loves the elephant, neck pillow and blanket all in her bed with her as we speak...
I am making good use of the wallet and notebook and you saved my life last night when the baby wipes I brought with me ran out and I remembered I had seen a pack in the bag…
Only 2 days into our journey, already seems so long but I Just wanted to express my appreciation and tell you gestures like this and people like you matter so much.
A huge thank you to Dunbia UK (Cumbria), for making an amazing donation of £1,400 over the weekend.
Dunbia UK are committed to supporting charities, activities and organisations that are of relevance and valued by team members and stakeholders at both local and national levels. We were thrilled to be nominated as one of their charities to receive support, and we will use their donation towards funding a further 10 Milly Bags.
Working with 6 of the 16 Principal Treatment Centres across the country means that we are able to support children across a large part of the country including; Northumberland, Cumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne, Lancashire, Humberside, West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Merseyside, Isle of Man, North Wales, Nottinghamshire, Oxford and the Thames Valley.
Thank you so much Dunbia Uk, for supporting us in making a difference every day to children newly diagnosed with a cancer related illness.
Happy Heavenly Birthday my beautiful Milly…(6th November)
..I miss you more and more each and every day..I miss waking up and seeing you dressed, ready for school…I miss your giggle..I miss you in the car singing along to the radio pretending you know the words..I miss brushing and plaiting your hair..I miss sitting at the table eating tea and finding you have pinched my slippers..I miss you trying to put your hands round my neck because you know I don’t like it..I miss seeing you skip out of school..I miss your hugs..I miss your kisses…I miss watching your swimming lessons..I miss washing and ironing your clothes..I miss seeing your face at your bedroom window waiting for me to get home from work..I miss tucking you up in bed..I miss you asking me to say a good dream spell to stop you having nightmares..I miss your laugh..I miss your beautiful face..I miss life with you..i miss the life we were meant to have..
The “what-ifs” are so strong everyday. I wonder what your interests would be. I wonder if you would have any new passions. I wonder what we would be doing for your 21st birthday, would you be having a party… or spending it with your friends…. I wonder how much more beautiful you would be, if that would even be possible.
We have missed out on a lifetime of memories, missed out on watching you grow up, leave school, make decisions about your future, and it’s so hard not to feel cheated with only having had a very brief 11 years with you.
You are missed every second Milly and loved endlessly….
Have a lovely birthday in heaven with the angels and always know that..
Thank you to everyone who joined us on Sunday (3rd November) for our 10th Annual Walk for Milly.
It was lovely to see so many familiar faces along with a few new faces too. It was especially nice to have a number of families who have received a Milly Bag join us.
The walkers were treated to potatoe pie, cheese pie after the walk and as a special birthday treat we had some delicious cupcakes that were donated by North Lancs Training Group – NLTG which were enjoyed by everyone.
We love this event so much, and it means the world to have such wonderful support for Milly and her charity.
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!
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.”
