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Dugdale Memorial Bowling Club hold a fundraising day for Milly’s Smiles

A charity bowling competition was held at Dugdale Memorial Bowling Club in Blackburn in memory of a young gentleman who passed away at the age of 46 in 2016.  Andrew was a keen runner and had completed 6 marathons, including 2 London Marathons, he was also a weekly player at the bowling club along with both his parents.  The day was sponsored by Andrew’s parents Bob and Jackie and they wanted to donate the money to Milly’s Smiles as Andrew was a big supporter of our charity, and was often out running in our Milly’s Smiles T-shirt.  We are so proud to accept the money raised in Andrew’s Memory, which was £520 and thank everyone who supported the event on the day.  A huge thank you to Bob and Jackie and we send them lots of love and strength.

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Riverside Nursery Walk 10 Miles for Milly’s Smiles and raise £1608.23

Courageous young man, Jack, aged 3 years was recently diagnosed with kidney cancer and is currently undergoing a course of intensive treatment.  Jack has had surgery to remove a tumour, several courses of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and in total, Jack will have 34 weeks of chemotherapy to get him back to full health, his final chemotherapy will be in March 2018.

Despite all of  this, Jack is still very active and happy and is obsessed with dinosaurs and motorbikes.

Jack attends Riverside Nursery in Darwen and when the nursery approached Jacks parent to ask about raising money they immediately suggested Milly’s Smiles as they said we ‘have been a great support to them after Jack’s diagnosis’.

Since then the nursery have had a busy month raising money and on 22 October 2017, staff from the nursery braved the awful weather and walked 11.5 miles from Lower Darwen to Bucksaw Nursery in Chorley.  We think they are all truly amazing, and thank everyone involved for supporting us.

 

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St Bart’s Time Out Club get busy for Milly’s Smiles

We were very impressed recently to hear about he children from Time Out Club at St Bartholomew’s Church, Great Harwood. They held a sponsored car wash and a clean up of Memorial Park. After some discussion they decided they would like to donate the £100 raised to Milly’s Smiles. We went along to their club earlier this week to say a huge thank you, and to show them a Milly Bag so that they could see what their money has paid for.

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Lily receives a Milly Bag

When our Milly Bags are given out, we don’t expect thanks because we have been in that same position the family now finds themselves, and we understand that their world has suddenly become a very different, uncertain place.  All your strength and energy is going into dealing with what is happening to your child, and so when we received this picture from Lily’s mum thanking us, we were absolutely thrilled.  We send Lily lots of love and strength in her recovery journey 💕

 

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20th September 2017 9.26am – 2 year anniversary

Today marks the two year anniversary of Milly going to heaven, even now 2 years on, as I write the words it doesn’t seem real. Losing a child completely changes you forever, it can destroy you and break you into a thousand pieces, but despite this your heart continues to beat and the world continues to turn. You become an expert at hiding the deep soul searing pain that engulfs you, your child that you brought into this world has gone, not in this lifetime will you ever again hear their laughter, comfort them and smother them in kisses, wave them off to school, college, watch them fall in love, get married and have their own children. They are forever missing from life now and from all the life yet to come. Bereaved parents become experts at learning to cope, whilst trying to make some kind of sense of what has happened.

Milly’s Smiles has been my saviour, it has allowed me to bring Milly into the future with me, it has allowed me to tell her story, people are learning about Milly, they know she had an amazing zest for life, with a crazy sense of humour. They know she loved her family and friends fiercely and would do anything she could to make them happy.

I don’t post personal feelings often on this page but today is different …the charity to me is personal. Its about Milly. It’s entire ethos is about love, my love for Milly and Milly’s love for life. Milly is the reason the charity is here, and that makes it very personal. The charity, whilst helping families who have been given the devastating news that their child has cancer, also allows me to honour Milly’s life. I speak about how amazing she was and how much love she brought into people’s lives, especially mine. It is truly a privilege to be Milly’s mum, and if given the chance and knowing the painful outcome I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

So today, we honour the young lady behind the charity, she is the reason we do what we do, we do this out of pure love for Milly, because in the end, all that matters is how hard we loved and how hard we tried.

Today, it’s about beautiful, brave Milly, my daughter.

My everythingme and beautiful millymilly2

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Heyside Juniors Under 14’s Proudly Support Milly’s Smiles

A family who received one of our first Milly Bags in March 2016, when their daughter was diagnosed with a Wilms tumour have paid tribute to Milly’s Smiles in a wonderful way. Heyside Juniors Under 14’s Football Team have renewed their football kit and have added our logo onto their strip to help raise awareness of our charity. The printing was kindly donated by Trans-Web Ltd, in Oldham, and the kit looks amazing. The team have already played 2 games in their new kit and have won both games – way to go lads! We are always so humbled by peoples kindness and generosity, we never take it for granted, and we thank this lovely family and everyone involved for their amazing support.

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Budding Entrepreneur Patrick raises money for Milly’s Smiles

During the summer holidays 7 year old Patrick recently used his pocket money to buy goodies for a tombola stall that he had on his fairground.  Patrick charged friends and family 50p to have a go and raised a fantastic £20 for Milly’s Smiles.  We are all blown away by this, and think you are amazing Patrick, thank you so much for thinking of Milly’s charity, and helping us do an incredible job of supporting newly diagnosed families admitted onto Ward 84.

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Dorothy & Friends hold a Milly’s Smiles Afternoon Tea

A huge thank you to Dorothy who recently held a garden party for Milly’s Smiles, fortunately the sun shone and helped make the day a great success. The party was really well attended and raised a great amount of £420 for us.  Thank you to everyone who supported the event.

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Joe & Matthew’s Tough Mudder Challenge Raises £880!

Joe’s cousin Jude was recently diagnosed with an osteosarcoma, his diagnosis came as a huge shock for his family, and they found themselves in a whirlwind of activity as Jude’s treatment started very quickly.  Joe told us that Milly’s Smiles were a huge help for the family when they were admitted onto Ward 84 at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, and after seeing the support that we provide to families he has decided to raise some money to allow us to support other families who find themselves in a similar situation.

Joe and his dad took on the Tough Mudder challenge on September 10th, which was a 16k  mud and obstacle course designed to drag you out of your comfort zone by testing your physical strength, stamina, and mental grit.

Judging by the after picture a great time was had by the pair of them, well done guys and thank you for supporting us and raising an amazing amount of money. Joe Donlan2

 

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Matthew’s Mamouth 18 Mile Bike Ride Challenge!

During our visit to Poulton St Chad’s C E Primary School, a young boy came and introduced himself and told us he had done an 18mile bike ride with his dad to raise money for Milly;s Smiles.  Upon delving further we were extremely impressed, to say the least, at how much training, and hard work and effort Matthew had been putting into getting ready for the ride and the actual ride itself.  We got in touch with Matthew’s dad and he told us how hard Matthew has worked, and what the charity means to him….

Since a relatively young age, perhaps the age of 7, my son Matthew has been aware of cancer. Luckily this hasn’t been through close family members suffering from the disease. I think his awareness has largely been through what he has picked up from the radio or television, and his inquisitive nature has led him to ask us, his parents, lots of questions. We have always been honest with Matthew about cancer, both the sad news but also balancing this with how through research more and more people are surviving cancer. So when his friend Megan became ill, Matthew had a good understanding of what having cancer meant but at the same time was naturally very concerned. In fact his whole class were significantly affected by this, perhaps especially so because as part of a community school they are so close. Megan has been very open with her class mates about what she has been going through and has shared her journey with them. As a 10 year old Matthew had a lot of worry on his shoulders. He desperately wanted to do something to help but he just didn’t know where to start. Then Milly’s Smiles came to St Chad’s school in Poulton-Le-Fylde and talked about the amazing work they did to help families who were coping with cancer. Matthew was so inspired by the stories he heard and was warmed by the very practical help the charity gave to both the children and parents of those at the beginning of cancer treatment, and the immediate emotional difference this support made. It was this very day that Matthew came home knowing how he could do something ‘positive’: taking part in the Beaverbrooks 18 Miles Bike Ride and raising money! We had already talked about doing the ride as a fun challenge but now it took on a new meaning. We discussed ‘how much’ we thought we could raise but didn’t get too hung up on this because we believed even small amounts can make a difference. So we set up a Just Giving page and got started with a target of £100. Interestingly, Matthew knew that if he was asking people for money, he needed to show them that he was going to try his very best. We therefore spent the weeks before event regularly training and would be out on our bikes no matter what the weather. He showed enormous commitment throughout. His Uncle Sean (my brother) was also hugely inspired by the work of Milly’s Smiles and Matthew’s mission and joined us for part of the ride. The day itself was great. The weather was kind to us and Matthew cycled with huge determination. Out of the 3 of us he certainly had the hardest job. To explain further, at around the 15 mile mark, Matthew said his bike was getting hard to pedal. After a quick check everything seemed okay. It was only as we neared the end that it became clear that Matthew’s front break had been catching. So he was basically cycling with his front break partly on! Oops! Throughout the ride we took pictures and kept all our supporters informed about how we were getting on and even tried to make them all jealous at the supply of jelly babies we had. We finished the ride and overall Matthew managed to raise £295. He was so incredibly proud and overwhelmed at the support and generosity people showed him. He didn’t even know some of these people. Word spread about what he was doing and people just decided to help! Uncle Sean managed to raise £350, much of which came from his fantastic colleagues at Royal Mail in Blackpool, and he generously decided to add this to our overall total. They say that from small acorns grow big oak trees. What started as a 10 year old boy wanting to make a difference ended with a donation of £645 being made to Milly’s Smiles. But the overall benefits are much more than money. It’s about community spirit and people coming together, and as Matthew’s dad I could not be more proud of my son.

WOW! Matthew, you are an amazing, kind young man, and we thank you so much for all your hard work and for the amazing amount of money you have raised for us.craig and matthew bike ride 4 craig and matthew bike ride 3 Craig and Matthew bike ride1 craig and matthew bike ride4 craig and matthew bike ride2