In March of this year I received a lovely email from a lady called Natalie, she told me that she was part of a local fundraising team consisting of herself, her husband, Simon, and two friends, Tom and Martin. Together they were in the process of arranging a charity football match for the third year running. The match is named in honour of a local young girl, Olivia, who sadly passed away in 2021.
Natalie said they would like to raise funds for Milly’s Smiles this year, as we have recently supported their friends son Thomas, when he was transferred to The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital in April last year, aged 6, following a diagnosis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. It was on Ward 86 that Thomas received his Milly’s Smiles bag, which his parents say was a total god send.
The day of the Charity Football Match was beautiful, so many people came together to make the day a huge success. There was so much going on throughout the day and Thomas and his sister Lucy made £250 from selling bracelets that they had be making specially with their friends.
The total amount of money raised from the event was a huge £8707.24! Way beyond anything that we ever expected, and pure testament to the amount of hard work put in by everyone involved.
Alongside all the money raised, the team have also got a collection of over 400 toiletry items for us. We are really looking forward to meeting up with them later in the month to be able to thank them in person for all their support.
A special mention goes out to Olivia and her brave parents, there are never any words that can ease the pain associated with the loss of a child. Bravery is measured in many ways, but for me, parents who continue to live their lives without their precious child are amongst the bravest people to walk the earth. When that is combined with making a difference to other people in memory of their child, then that becomes something very special indeed.
Some days you just know you will remember for ever, and the day of our Spring Fair was most defiantly one of them!
Together with Great Harwood Rovers FC we have been planning this event for around 8 months and we had high hopes of putting on a fantastic day for the lovely people of Great Harwood and beyond, whilst also raising some money for Milly’s Smiles.
We enlisted support from volunteers who all very quickly came on board with very little persuasion, all of them happy to work alongside us to do as much as they could to help.
As the day drew closer the weather became one of our biggest worries – there was so much rain every single day and there didn’t seem to be any respite in sight!
Our second biggest worry that if the rain didn’t stop would anyone actually come on the day!
However, our worries were instantly quashed on the morning of the fair, when we woke up and saw the sun was beaming down on us, this went on to last throughout the entire day too.
The Fair was spectacularly opened by the Town Cryer, Rawden Kerr who did a fantastic cry encouraging people to spend their money! He told me later that he realised a huge ambition that day, when he got to have a parrot on his shoulders! Apparently children regularly ask him if he is a pirate, so he very much felt in character having a parrot sat on his shoulder!
We had the Mayor and his lovely Mayoress present, Councillor Terry Hurn and his wife Jean, who are always such a joy to have around, and who have been an amazing support to Milly’s Smiles during their year of office. We were also joined by our MP Sara Britcliffe as well as our local councillors for the borough.
The crowds certainly came too, we had over 2000 visitors which was way beyond our expectations, and it was wonderful to see every one enjoying the stalls, food, football and attractions.
We have to thank every single one of our amazing volunteers and helpers they all went well and truly above and beyond in their support yesterday, no job was too small or too large for them, and we really could not have managed without them.
Massive thank you also goes to the awesome team at Imperial Alliance, their Stormtroopers were just incredible and coped with the heat so well. Everyone loved them!
We are always so well supported by the local fire brigade and police for which we will always be so grateful. The did a fabulous job engaging with all the visitors on the day, and the children were thrilled to be able to sit in the fire engine and police car.
Also joining us were a team from Avidly UK (we are their charity for the year) they too were unwavering with their support and worked so hard through out the day for us.
It was so fabulous to see all the stall holders and food vendors too, I was blown away with the quality of products and how lovely everyone was. There was certainly so many fantastic bargains and unique gifts to be had.
Helen at Lancashire Dog Company, worked extremely hard on our dog show, which was truly a credit to her. The show ran so smoothly and it was wonderful to see all the dogs with their owners – the fancy dress was a massive hit, huge congratulations to Crueall DeVille on winning first prize!
We were very fortunate to have ex Blackburn Rovers player Tommy Spur kindly come and play football for GHRFC, he did a sterling job but unfortunately the team did not win and were pipped at the post by Clitheroe U23’s.
The day was a massive success and worth all the painstaking hours spent planning and organising. Together with Great Harwood Rovers FC we made a fantastic team, and judging from the feedback we received from visitors, stall holders etc the day was amazing and please could we do it again next year!
I have to mention my Milly, the day in its entirety was for her, to continue to keep her beautiful memory alive and to raise money to support children and families who are unknowingly going to embark on a similar journey to the one Milly and I experienced.
Milly is missed beyond any words that I can articulate but she is kept in everyone’s hearts because of all the work we do and the phenomenal support we receive from you all.
We are still waiting for some monies to come in but we are looking to have raised just under £4,000 which is way beyond our expectations. Thank you to every single person involved, we feel very lucky and blessed with all the support.
Earlier this month, the very lovely Jess at Jess B Panache Dancefitness organised a mammoth 3 hour danceathon!
What an event! It was the hottest day of the year so far and over 40 people came together to dance their hearts out for Milly’s Smiles.
The afternoon was a truly incredible, filled with fun, laughter and lots of energy! The instructors; Alex, Andrea, Jan and Jess were outstanding, they made it so much fun and there really was something for everyone.
All participants received a goody bag and a Milly’s Smiles Danceathon T-Shirt, which was very quickly modelled by everyone!
A total of just over £1700 was raised on the day, which is wonderful. A huge thank you to all the participants, to everyone who donated raffle prizes, and most of all to the wonderful instructors who worked their socks off to ensure we had a fantastic afternoon.
Jess’s classes are every Wednesday at 6.30pm-7.30pm at All Saints School, Clayton le Moors.
Milly’s Smiles have very kindly been awarded a grant of £2,000 from the SJP Charitable Foundation, which is all down to meeting Financial Adviser Toby, at a Padiham Networking Group (Padiham Bang) around 12 months ago.
Toby recommended us to apply for the grant and we were absolutely thrilled to be successful with our application. It is wonderful that the foundation are able to help support our continuing work with children newly diagnosed with cancer.
The SJP Charitable Foundation was set up in 1992 with the aim to support local charities and a way of Advisers and Employees giving back to their local communities. To this date, the Foundation has raised over £120 million pounds.
Huge thank you to Toby and SJP Charitable Foundation, this means so much to us, and we are extremely grateful for this support.
Earlier last month Graeme and I headed over the Pennines to Leeds Children’s Hospital. The weather was terrible with heavy rain, strong winds and then diversions all around the city – but thanks to Graeme’s good driving and navigation skills we eventually made it to the ward.
It was lovely to see Elaine waiting for us with her trolley ready. Elaine looks after our Milly Bags and makes sure that every new admission is given their bag upon their arrival onto the ward.
Elaine also collects feedback from the families, which we love to receive. We read every single note and if there is anything we can do to improve we will always do so.
One example is changing the sweets in our bags from jelly babies to fruit pastels. We were advised by a family that the jelly babies were not suitable for everyone due to not being vegan friendly, this was not something that we had considered, and so were very grateful to have this bought to our attention. From that point all jelly babies were changed to fruit pastels, which means they can be enjoyed by everyone.
Below is one of the lovely feedback notes we received during this delivery:
“Thank you for the Milly’s Bag, coming to hospital was not planned and as it was our first time being here, everything was overwhelming. To get the Milly Bag felt like someone cared and understood what we were going through. The toiletries have been really handy and the blanket much cosier than hospital blankets – thank you so much”.
We are so proud and humbled to be able to make such a difference every single day.
Earlier this month I was invited to attend an event with the Mayor and Mayoress of Hyndburn. The evening was to present awards to individuals in recognition of their hard work and dedication given to their community groups, organisations and charity groups.
It was a pleasure and an honour to be there and to be presented with a certificate by The Mayor and Mayoress.
There was an extra surprise during the evening when I was presented with a cheque for £3,216 from Paul and Sarah Barton.
These 2 lovely people have a special place in my heart and have been so supportive over the last 9 years.
The money was raised at Paul’s 50th birthday party a few weeks ago, instead of asking for presents, Paul asked for donations and/or toiletries for Milly’s Smiles.
A huge thank you to Paul and Sarah, this is wonderful and will be put to good use in supporting children newly diagnosed with cancer.
Last week we made a 260 mile round trip to drop off 20 more Milly Bags to Ward E39 at Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham.
The traffic was not kind to us but it was worth the journey to be able to continue to support the oncology ward.
I managed to speak to one of the nurses from the ward at last week’s Childhood Cancer Conference and she told me how much their families loved and appreciated our bags.
It’s always so reassuring to know that we do make a difference every day.
Thank you to everyone who continues to support us – it is a team effort getting to the hospitals and we never forget that.
After a lot of perseverance, tenacity and hard work in our endeavours to have our Milly Bags on all the children’s oncology wards across the country, last week we made our first delivery to the Great North Children’s Hospital in Newcastle.
This day has been in the making for almost 2 years following an initial meeting with an incredible charity TeamLuke Foundation.
Team Luke are amazing people who set up their charity in memory of Luke, who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma and initially treated at Newcastle. Sadly Luke did not survive his treatment and now his family work tirelessly funding research into this cruel disease.
The team were very keen to collaborate with us in order to get our bags onto Ward 4 which would give newly diagnosed families the same support that Milly’s Smiles provide in other hospitals.
Since that initial meeting in December 2022 we have been working very hard to make this happen. We have been wonderfully supported by Children’s Cancer North who have helped facilitate the practicalities of having our bags on Ward 3.
Both Milly’s Smiles and Team Luke were very proud to hand over our first delivery last week. We are thrilled that this has finally happened and newly diagnosed families can start to benefit from a Milly Bag when they need it most.
Today is a very proud day for us all – collaborating with other charities is very important to us, we are all working for the good of these amazing children and their families and great things can happen when we all come together.
Today is a proud day and Milly and Luke’s legacies continue to inspire.
Milly’s Smiles Bag deliveries are usually very evenly spaced out between the various hospitals that we support. However this month we have become quite busy with 3 of our hospitals requiring a delivery.
Fortunately we are well organised in our unit and always have bags packed, tagged and good to go, so that we can deliver as soon as hospitals let us know they are running low.
Today was the turn of Ward 84/86 at The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. We have been supporting the ward for 8 years now and today’s delivery has taken us up to 880 Milly Bags in total.
We are very blessed with all the support we get from donations, fundraisers, bag packers and delivery drivers – none of what we do would be possible without every one of these amazing people.
Thank you to David and Vicky for safely delivering our Milly Bags today, and we send our love to the families who will very sadly be receiving one of our bags in the coming weeks and months.
We always wish there was no need for our Milly Bags, but for as long as there is a need, we will continue to work hard to support children and families every single day.
