‘Bethany’s Smile’ is a children’s charity that raises money for those in the UK that suffer from life limiting/threatening illness through helping them to get home-care as well as helping children’s hospices with their funding. Another aim they have is to build, ‘Smile Cottage’ through reaching a fundraising target of £300,000. The sea facing cottage is a place where families can spend quality time building happy memories for a week when they are told their child has a very short life expectancy. ‘Bethany’s Smile’ also aims to inspire and empower young people to become fundraisers through their ‘Smilers Club’. Along with many other events, ‘Bethany’s Smile’ is organising lots of Walk Of Smiles events and also presenting to schools about fundraising to encourage young people to get involved.
Bethany’s fundraising to date has been based around Charlie Chaplin, the Chaplin family have given Bethany the huge honor as to gain permission to use the Charlie Chaplin image in her charity logo, mascot, and also to dress as Charlie Chaplin at charity events – an amazing gesture!
Other great achievements for Bethany include gaining great trustees for her charity, I.e the member of parliament, Mr Stuart Andrew, who was previously the Head of Fundraising at Martin House Children’s Hospice. As well as, Karl Smith, who’s father founded Green Flag Rescue. As well as this, Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter) kindly agreed to become a Patron for the charity, further to his involvement in my previous fundraising projects.
Bethany’s fundraising started when she was only 10. She made a Charlie Chaplin style film and put the film on Just Giving and asked her friends and family to watch it and make donations to Martin House Children’s Hospice. She used all her savings to make the film but did not think about copyright permission for a song called ‘Smile’ which she sang and was asked to pay a lot of money by Bourne Music in America. She went to school and when she came home Sky News were in her garden wanting to interview her but her mommy said no. Matters were later sorted out by Charlie Chaplin’s kind family and Bourne Music in New York told her that she could use ‘Smile’ the song on her film for 12 months. This permission has now expired but you can still watch the film with a totally different piece of music which was written for Bethany by Ben Model of Silent Clowns in New York. Ben read about her in America and did not want the film to be silent. Bethany raised £8,400 with her film and now has a very nice relationship with Bourne Music and the Chaplin family. Bethany’s first fundraising target was originally £5,500 which is how much it costs to run Martin House for one morning. Later she raised the target to £22,000 to run Martin House for two days.
Below is a link to a short film which shows a brief look at this charity event, made in order to thank all the people who supported Bethany on the day, i.e Mathew Lewis (Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter, James Milner (England Footballer), Stuart Andrew MP, Gerard Brophy (YCCC) and also companies such as Morrisons Supermarkets, Greggs Bakers, Harrogate Spring Water, Batley’s Cash and Carry, Jade Print, First4Nmbers and other companies – even Gary Barlow knows all about Bethany’s fundraising and he gave her approval to use his song ‘Greatest Day’ on her DVD! Another huge honour!
Everything you see on the video was given free I.e Bib numbers, certificates, food, cakes, water, etc – over £10,000 was raised from the day!! ITV Calendar News came too and showed an article on TV that was 2.5 minutes long and they have told Bethany that they will speak to all their regions to obtain support for each of her events.
She was given permission to print 500 copies of her DVD of the first Walk Of Smiles Leeds both from Bourne Music in New York (as she sings ‘Smile’ at the event and they also granted permission for her to sing ‘Smile’ live at the Walk Of Smiles events for the next five years) and also, as mentioned earlier, Gary Barlow (Take That) and Universal Music also supported her use of their song ‘Greatest Day’. A company in High Wycombe kindly printed all the copies for Bethany’s Smile, free of charge.
Since making her original film she has been awarded the titles of Just Giving’s’ Young Fundraiser of the Year’ at The Emirates Stadium in London, Kids Count UK’s ‘Most Inspirational Young Person’ at The House of Commons in London, The British Red Cross Humanitarian Citizen Award for Humanitarian Action in Fundraising, the ‘Yorkshire Children of Courage and Achievement Award for Fundraising’ and the Rotary Club – Service Above Self Award. Bethany has also recently been awarded the prestigious Princess Diana Award, the Rotary Leeds Service Above Self Award, the Rotary of Great Britain and Ireland ‘National Young Citizen Award’ and most recently the Rotary International Paul Harris Fellowship.
On 20 October 2012 Bethany held her first Charity Ball at The Headingley Experience, Headingley Carnegie Stadium in Leeds. Charlie Boorman donated two prizes for the auction and Bethany was also sent items from Daniel Craig, Ed Sheeran, John Bishop, ITV’s Emmerdale, England Footballer, James Milner and Alan Titchmarsh. Headingley Carnegie Stadium recently sent out a Press Release confirming that they are acting as main sponsors for Bethany’s indoor events. They will also be hosting her next event which is a huge Charity Fashion Show on Thurs 28 Feb 2013.
Due to having a performing arts background, Bethany wants to focus her charity around Performing Arts and try to give something back to people who donate.
For more information on Betany’s Smile charity check out her website www.bethanyssmile.org
