Milly's Smiles

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The charity is in memory of my beautiful, inspirational daughter Milly, who is missed beyond words. It is like being given an understanding hug in a bag.

Milly’s Smiles was founded in November 2015 by Lorraine Hargreaves, in memory of her daughter Milly. Milly was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia in November 2014 aged 11 and was treated at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital for 10 months, until she very sadly passed away weeks before her 12th birthday. Milly’s Smiles became a registered charity in March 2016, with their objective to help children and families going through a similar journey that Milly and her family had embarked upon. Children are often admitted into hospital unexpectedly after being initially diagnosed with a cancer by their local GP or hospital, parents often have nothing with them and are unprepared for a long hospital stay. Milly’s Smiles provide help and support to families at this point. A Milly Bag is given on arrival onto the ward, and contains essential and luxury items that families do not realise they need until they need them. The bag is so much more than practical support, it also lets families know that someone is thinking about them and understands their fears and their worries. Milly’s Smiles currently support 5 Principal Treatment Centres, The Royal Manchester, Children’s Hospital, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Leeds Children’s Hospital, The Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham and most recently The Great North Children’s Hospital in Newcastle. Each Milly Bag costs £140 and a total of 1705 families have been supported which equates to £238,700.

04/11/2026

A little reminder that our doors will be open this Friday for Coffee, Cake & Conversation.

This Friday is particularly special to us, as it would be Milly’s 23rd birthday, so we have some extra special surprises for those joining us.

If you have experienced the death of a child, of any age and at any time, you are so very welcome to join us, equally if you know of anyone who would benefit from support please share this post.

No pressure. No expectations. Just a warm welcome, a brew, some cake and time with people who truly understand.

Milly’s Smiles, Great Harwood
Friday 6th November
10am – 12pm

Sometimes just being with people who understand makes all the difference. 🌈❤

02/11/2026

Our 12th Annual Walk for Milly.

What an absolutely wonderful day we had yesterday, we had over 100 people joining us to walk and it really was such a lovely day. What made it extra special was having some of our wonderful families from Ward 86 joining us again. It is always so lovely to see them.

The weather was kind to us, staying dry and bright, and everyone enjoyed the 4-mile walk, with a little encouragement from PC Dave, who gave everyone a pep talk before we set off!

A huge thank you to our fantastic volunteers from Be Strong Eat. Move. Live. who did a brilliant job of marshalling the route and making sure everyone was safe along the way.

Once everyone returned to the Unit, there were sausage sandwiches, hot drinks and birthday cupcakes waiting for them, all thanks to the generosity of some wonderful local businesses.

A huge thank you to Farnsworths Fresh Foods for donating the amazing sausages, Clayton Park Bakery for the delicious teacakes and North Lancs Training Group - NLTG for the lovely birthday cupcakes. Your kindness helped make the day even more special.

We were also incredibly touched by the generosity of everyone who made a donation, with an amazing £486.66 raised on the day! Thank you so much to everyone who contributed.

For me personally, there is something so incredibly special about this walk. Standing there watching everyone arrive, knowing they had come to walk for Milly, genuinely took my breath away.

It means more than I could ever put into words that, all these years later, people still come together to remember my beautiful daughter, to honour her birthday and to support the incredible work that continues in her memory.

Milly's birthday is such an important day for us, and seeing so many people come together, remembering her and keeping her memory alive, is something I will never take for granted.

We really are so lucky to have such a wonderful community around us, and I hope everyone who joined us knows just how much their support means.

Finally, thank you to each and every one of you for walking for Milly, for remembering her, and for continuing to support Milly's Smiles.🎗🌈❤

01/11/2026

Amazing turn out for our 12th walk for Milly 🌈🩷🎗️

21/10/2026

A huge thank you to Lynn and Dave, who have very kindly been fundraising for Milly's Smiles by selling some of their gorgeous home-grown plants and flowers over the summer.

Thanks to their hard work and generosity, they have raised an incredible £300!

We love seeing all the different ways people fundraise for us, and it really does warm our hearts knowing we have so much wonderful support from so many people.

It is because of this kindness and generosity that we can continue to be there for children and their families at a time when their whole world has collapsed.

We are so grateful to Lynn and Dave for thinking of Milly's Smiles, and for all the time and effort they have put into raising this fantastic amount.

And of course, a big thank you to everyone who supported their plant sale.

We really are so blessed to have such lovely people supporting us, and we never take that kindness for granted. ❤🌈🎗🌺

19/10/2026

What a fabulous couple of days we had at Tesco Accrington!

We spent our second weekend fundraising alongside Shania and Wendy from Tesco, this time at their Accrington store.

Friday saw us welcome our newest volunteer, Dave, who was thrown straight into the action! He embraced the occasion wholeheartedly, proudly sporting a rather fetching blue tutu which coordinated beautifully with his shirt!

The Tesco team were fantastic, with so many staff getting into the fundraising spirit and dressing up in colourful tutus. It was lovely to see everyone getting involved.

Shania and Wendy ran a tombola stall over the weekend, whilst we concentrated on finding loving forever homes for lots of our little elephants.

We even had a surprise visit from Mickey Mouse on Friday! We're still not entirely sure where he came from, but he was very welcome!

A special mention must go to the lovely Alisha, who spent two whole days dressed as an elephant and did a superb job!

Over the two days we met so many lovely people, had lots of laughs and received an incredible amount of kindness and support.

In total, we raised just over £800, which is absolutely incredible and will make a real difference to the families we support.

A huge thank you to Tesco Accrington, to Shania and Wendy for all their hard work and enthusiasm, to Alisha, Mickey Mouse, all the fabulous Tesco staff, including Gemma, who very kindly kept us supplied with teas and coffees, and, of course, everyone who stopped to chat, bought a tombola ticket, adopted an elephant or made a donation.

We really couldn't do what we do without such wonderful support.

Thank you for making it such a lovely weekend 🎗❤🌈🐘

Address

Unit 4, Alan Ramsbottom Way
Great Harwood
BB67UA

Telephone

+447555541987

Website

http://www.millyssmiles.org/

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