It was a typically beautiful Brisbane morning for this years annual Mater
Hospital’s 5K’s for Kids Event. Radio Lollipop volunteers were invited again this year to help support the Mater Little Miracles by blowing up and handing out balloons. Miss Lollipop was invited as a special
guest and was a great hit with children and adults alike!

The atomosphere was fantastic as the Southbank Parklands filled with over
3,000 families, local celebrities and lots of colourful balloons!! The
Radio Lollipop volunteers were out in force handing out balloons and chatting with the children!

Everyone had a great time, especially Miss Lollipop (aka Radio Lollipop Honorary Volunteer Co-ordinator Natasha Manricks) who walked the whole 5K’s!

The Radio Lollipop team in Newcastle are gearing up for a week of live broadcasts aimed specifically at their children’s cancer ward.

The shows will take place daily from the 3rd – 7th July from 1pm-6pm and will lead up to the hospital’s summer fete on July 8th.

“At the moment, our position is that we only have radio available on one ward – our children’s cancer ward” said Lollipop Newcastle volunteer Helen Hudspith.

“However, we aim to harness this to our advantage by doing a week of shows focussed on our children’s cancer patients and their families. We hope to have lots of competitions, prizes, games, studio visits and fun, but we have also been liasing with ward staff to ensure that it gives plenty of exposure to Radio Lollipop and the work we are doing with the kids. The play specialists in particular have been keen to involve as many of the kids as possible in order to relieve the boedom of their hospital stay”.

Volunteer DJ Chris Felton said “we also thought that it’s important to have an ‘open door’ policy during the week, so that we can have profiles of the kids and ask members of the public who are passing to request songs for specific children. That way, they can feel a connection to what is going on.”

So, if you’re passing the Lollipop studio sometime during the children’s cancer radio week, please come in and say hello. We welcome anyone who’d like to find out a little bit more about who we are and the work we are doing with the children.

Radio Lollipop Newcastle helped to raise local awareness of the charity by taking part in their third major fundraising event in conjunction with The Children’s Foundation and Grace House Children’s Hospice in Sunderland.

Radio Lollipop provided their well-known roadshow service to help the Children’s Foundation in their aim to support research and programmes that will make a significant contribution to the health and wellbeing of children. Also working alongside us on the day were Grace House Hospice who provide caring support for North East families throughout the most heartbreaking times of their lives.

Radio Lollipop are proud to be invited to take part in the Yellow Brick Road Sponsored Walks because they give us the chance to get out and about into our local community and showcase the work we do with kids at Newcastle RVI.

As well as enjoying a beautiful walk around Mowbray Park in Sunderland, children watched Houghton Gymnastics, local singer Jane Corney and the South Bank School choir. “Whoops child safety” provided opportunities for educational but fun activities, Sunderland AFC Foundation taught a trick or two to the kids and of course, Radio Lollipop had many giveaways to entertain.

There were also plenty of opportunities for the children (and Lollipop volunteers) to have their photographs taken with the characters from the wizard of Oz, and 2 year old Ben from Sunderland won the fancy dress competition after impressing all of us on the catwalk.

Radio Lollipop were pleased to help make the day a success and aim to ensure that the event is a regular feature on our yearly calendar.

If you are interested in ecoming a volunteer with Radio Lollipop, please contact your local station to find out what you can do to help.

After a recent fundraising appeal by Radio Lollipop in Newcastle, Northern Rock plc have dug their hands in their pockets and reached out to help by offering the station £1000 towards its running costs every year for the next three years.

Sheila Brown, chairlady at the station said,

“An ex-volunteer saw our recent newspaper article and was compelled to help. The lady knew exactly how much of a difference we can make to the general welfare and attitude of sick children and she really went out of her way to help us to get in touch with the right people at the Northern Rock. This is a massive boost to our fundraising efforts and we are very pleased to say a huge thank you to the people at the Northern Rock who have worked so hard to help us to arrange this contribution”.

Helen Hudspith, press and PR at Newcastle said

“In combination with other responses to the article, this will definitely help to alleviate some of our fundraising concerns for at least the next year. This means that any events and roadshows we do can focus on raising the profile of the charity and helping local people to have a bit more of an insight into what we do to help the kids. We are very proud that our ex-volunteers hold the charity in such high regard and are still able to make a vital difference to the charity at a time when funding is a problem on a national level. At the end of the day, we exist for the kids and if our general running costs are covered by donations such as this one, it means that our volunteers can focus on what we do best – putting smiles on kids faces”.

Other donations received in response to the article have including a donation from the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, several donations from members of the public and a photocopier and supplies from SOS office supplies.