My Story

WOW! Firstly I'm so happy and privileged to be able to enter the London Marathon and have the added pleasure of raising money for an excellent local organisation 

Sunshine & Smiles has been incredibly important to my family since we welcomed our youngest son Jacob who has Down Syndrome.

Prior to September 2020 I hadn't heard of Sunshine & Smiles, despite living in Leeds for over 10 years. 

When Jacob was born we spent a long time in NICU & later the children's cardiac ward at Leeds General Infirmary. During this time unfortunately covid was rife and face to face support usually available for families of babies with DS wasn't running, which left us feeling overwhelmed and in all honesty clueless - what did Jacob's DS diagnosis mean? Having no experience of DS it was a scary time, on top of Jacob having a complex congenital heart defect (complete AVSD) & Hirschsprung's Disease (a disease affecting the mobility of the bowel in simple terms, which can be fatal), we could not process anything to do with his DS diagnosis since it was the only one NOT a threat to his life.

In this whirlwind of operations, medications, diagnosis.. we were handed fliers for Sunshine & Smiles.  

They have helped us so much, with DLA forms, an listening ear for our concerns and once groups were allowed to restart we began attending weekly groups, fully funded makaton classes, speech & language sessions, swimming & early development groups! 

Thanks to Sunshine & Smiles we have made lots of new friends within the Down Syndrome community and now that Jacob's other health concerns are fixed and well managed we are supported in learning what DS means to us and what life looks like - it's different for every family!