Author: Lorraine

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.

Last month Sabden Cricket Club held their third charity golf day to support Milly’s smiles.

This year we had the lovely Lucy attending in her role as Ambassador along with her mum Carrie who has joined the team as Charity Trustee representing Milly’s smiles.

The club worked so hard to put together a fantastic day, and even the weather was kind meaning everyone could golf in the sunshine. The day concluded with some fabulous hospitality at Whalley Golf Club, and a grand total of £3,000 was raised!

The ongoing support that we receive from this club is phenomenal, they are unwavering in their commitment to Milly’s Smiles, and this means the absolute world to us. We know just how difficult it is to organise events like this, and so to do this for us year after year is amazing.

Thank you so much to everyone involved in arranging the day, to the sponsors of the event, to the players and to everyone for donating, we are so very grateful.

Earlier this year 20 year old Milly decided that she was going to run the Manchester Half Marathon in memory of her precious sister Sally.

Sally was treated for Ewings Sarcoma, on Ward 84 at The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital for almost 4 years before she heartbreakingly passed away at the age of 14. Milly and Sally were extremely close and Milly wanted to take on this challenge in Sally’s memory.

As Milly had never run before, this was a huge challenge, training began in May and despite suffering a couple of foot injuries along the way, Milly was determined that nothing was going to stop her from taking part.

Watching Milly run this race was amazing, she was totally in control for the whole time, and she made it look so effortless and easy, despite her first run being only 6 months ago!

Milly completed the Half Marathon in just 2:15:37!

I know Milly wanted to do Sally proud and I think it is so very safe to say that Sally will be more than proud of what her sister has achieved.

Alongside this awesome achievement Milly has also raised a fantastic £1315 for Milly’s Smiles (chosen because we were Sally’s favourite charity).

Thank you so much Milly, we know how much of your heart and soul went into yesterday, you deserve all your success and more, you were absolutely outstanding.

We are thrilled to be one of the chosen charities of North Lancs Training Group for this year, and it was lovely to welcome some of their team into our unit earlier this month.

The team already have lots planned for the year and their fundraising is already underway – at their visit, we were presented with a cheque for £350, which was raised at one of their recent staff team meetings.

We are really excited to working with the such a great company and we thank all the staff for choosing us as one of their charities.

It was lovely to welcome another one of our fabulous knitters into the unit last month. when Karen called in with a collection of extremely cute rainbow elephants.

In total Karen has knitted a total of 150 elephants, which is just fantastic. Our knitters are such a huge part of Milly’s Smiles, every single knitter gives up their time so selflessly to create these gorgeous elephants, and for that we will be forever grateful.

Our SOULS group this month was a lovely session. Despite us all being brought together because we have lost our precious children, there is a lot of love and support, combined with joy and laughter surrounding the groups.

Our groups are free to attend, we have no expectations, and you are made to feel so very welcome with people who totally understand.

Sunday 29 September is the date of our next group, please get in touch if you would like to book on – hello@millyssmiles.org.

We had a fabulous time at the Great Harwood Live Music Day over the bank holiday weekend. The music was amazing, and kept the crowds thoroughly entertained throughout the afternoon, people even forgot about the awful weather!

We had our Milly’s Smiles stall there and so many lovely people came to visit us and say hello. Our lovely volunteer Karen was offering face painting and I think she must have painted over 100 faces.

We were also joined by the wonderful Brie Mine U.K. and Holy Cannoli who were selling their exceptional food during the day.

The whole event supported Milly’s Smiles and all the artists gave their time for free.

A huge thank you goes out to Colin for arranging the whole day, to Billy who was a star with our collection bucket, to Louise who kept us supplied with hot drinks and to our amazing volunteers Carrie, Lucy, Diana and Karen.

Finally thank you to the people of Great Harwood for taking Milly’s Smiles into your hearts and for being totally amazing, we raised just over £500 which is amazing and will be put to good use supporting children who are newly diagnosed with cancer and admitted into hospital unexpectedly.

August has been our busiest month for a long time, we have delivered to the Children’s Hospitals at Nottingham, Oxford, Manchester, Leeds and yesterday to Liverpool.

A total of 100 Milly Bags have left our unit this month, thankfully we have had some brilliant volunteers who have packed the bags for us, which has ensured we have been ready to make a delivery at a moments notice.

Yesterday, Graeme headed over to Alder Hey and was met by Pip, from the play team who helped him unload the bags, she then took them safely off to Ward 3B.

Normally we try and have 2 people on deliveries, however Graeme was on his own yesterday so only managed a couple of photos as he was juggling the weather, loading the bags into the cage and negotiating with the parking attendant!

A total of 430 Milly Bags have now been sent to Alder Hey, and we feel very privileged that we are able to offer this support to all families whose child has been newly diagnosed with cancer.

Thank you for all our fundraisers, supporters, bag packers and volunteers who continue to believe in Milly’s Smiles. We make a difference every single day.