Lots of Christmas news and fundraising ball total!

Sunshine News Friday 19th November

Hi Sunshine News Readers

We’ve had another busy week at Sunshine HQ and of course it’s about Christmas!

Last week we announced that our Santa’s Grotto Bus with our friends Stagecoach will be on the road, spreading some much-needed festive cheer. Remember, you can visit us at Tesco Extra Kingston Park on Friday 26th November or The Killingworth Centre on Sunday 28th November. No booking is required for either these dates and whilst we will be fundraising on the day, visiting Santa is free of charge as we want every child to have the opportunity to have this experience.

As well as our accessible Santa Bus and Christmas Jumper Day, we are also working in partnership with the Grainger Market and Grainger Delivery who have published a special Christmas book this year with £2.50 from every sale coming to The Chronicle Sunshine Fund. The book, written by Craig Wilde, shares the story of Tip Top the elf who saves Christmas when he decides to shop local at Grainger Delivery. As a small North East charity, we know only too well the impact of the pandemic and are super proud to be working with another well loved, local organisation so that we can encourage everyone to support local this Christmas. The fun doesn’t end there however as TV’s ‘Queen of Clean’ ‘Kim Woodburn headed to the North East to star as Mrs Claus in this year’s gorgeous Christmas Commercial for the market. Follow @GraingerDelivery to have a peek at the ad!

Craig Wilde, author said - “we wanted to do something extra special with Grainger Delivery this year - it’s been a huge success story for the City and region, born out of the Grainger Market’s response to the pandemic and still going strong. Last year’s commercial was quite magical and we think this year we’ve gone one step up - not only producing this festive tale, but also in the book being able to give back to the wider community, through the great work of The Sunshine Fund.”

You can buy the book by visiting www.graingerdelivery.com/products/the-elf-who-saved-christmas.

Some other lovely news this week, I had a meeting with our friends at Metrocentre who have kindly donated some Disney on Ice tickets for our families. It’s always such an honour for us to talk about the work our charity does to supporters old and new and we look forward to working with the Metrocentre team again soon! We want to say a hug thank you to the Metrocentre team, especially Jen and Kirsty (Pictured) and to the wonderful Lyn Spencer and all at White Hot Communications for their continued support of The Sunshine Fund. We will be sharing details with our families soon.

And finally, with donations from our Noche Del Sol ball still coming in we can now proudly announce that the event raised in excess of £55,000! We met with Ball Partners St James Square earlier this week to say a special thank you (There's no better thank you than a giant cookie right?). Paul and Mark (Pictured) have been fantastic Friends of the Fund since our partnership began in 2020 and we are looking forward to planning our 2022 events with them. In fact, we will soon be launching our 2022 ball planned for September and we are thrilled to partner with St James Square again. Watch this space, you are going to LOVE this one....

Siobhan x