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.
We are thrilled to be working with Avidly UK & Canada this year as their chosen charity.
The team have already kick started their fundraising with an indoor cycling challenge, which saw half the team cycle 43 miles (the distance from their office in Clitheroe to The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital) whilst the remainder of the team cycled 18 miles.
16 brave staff members took on this challenge in March and the total amount of miles covered was 432! We think this is beyond impressive, and an outstanding achievement.
Avidly are hoping to raise enough money to fund 20 of our Milly Bags, which works out at £2,800. Already they are off to a fantastic start having raised a massive £1075!
Huge shout out to everyone involved in such a tough challenge, we thank you so very much and think you are all absolutely awesome!
Over Easter our delivery team David and Vicky kindly delivered a huge box of Easter Eggs to Ward 86 at The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.
The eggs were donated by an amazing lady whom I met last week when she called at the unit to drop off the eggs.
Ramona has been asking her fellow runners to bring Easter eggs to their running sessions so that she can donate them to Milly’s Smiles – it was so lovely to meet Ramona and hear all about the hard work she has put into getting the eggs.
Thank you Ramona for your kindness and thank you to David and Vicky for ensuring the eggs arrived safely on the ward.
Are you or do you know anyone living without their child?
Milly’s Smiles run monthly bereavement support groups for parents, grandparents and siblings.
Our groups are completely free to attend and are very relaxed, giving you the chance to meet other families living with the loss of their child.
Each session we will do some creative therapies which can be anything from candle making to planting tubs and planters.
Whilst we understand that walking through the door for the first time can be very daunting, we will make you feel so welcome, and safe, and there will never be any expectations from you.
At our last group we made crystal bracelets – it was a fun afternoon spent crafting and talking about our children.
Please get in touch if you would like to join us – 07555541987.
