Spotlight and Starlight join forces this Book Week to brighten the lives of seriously ill children
- Written by: The Times
This Book Week, Spotlight have provided hundreds of costumes and textiles to Starlight Express Rooms across Australia, ensuring sick kids in paediatric hospitals can still enjoy the magic of books, reading, and imagination.
This year’s Book Week runs from Saturday 17 August to Friday 23 August, inspired by the theme ‘Reading is Magic’. While most Aussie children will celebrate Book Week festivities by dressing up, playing and reading books in school classrooms and playgrounds, hundreds of children will instead spend this time in Australian hospitals around the country.
As Starlight Children’s Foundation’s Official-Creativity Partner, Spotlight is on a mission to ensure sick kids don’t miss out on the Book Week fun and have decked out Starlight Express Rooms in children’s hospitals nationwide with a huge range of arts, crafts, party supplies, costumes and more.
Through this partnership, Spotlight and Starlight will bring the magic of reading to life through its Maker Market, where sick kids can design and create their very own Book Week costumes.
Positively disrupting the hospital experience for sick kids who would otherwise miss out, the Maker Market will create vital opportunities for child-led play, imagination, and social development. As part of this initiative, Starlight kids will then be able to show off their own creations at the Book Week parade in children's hospitals nationally - providing families the opportunity to be a part of the annual event while undergoing treatment and hospitalisation.
Spotlight’s Head of Merchandise Creative, Miriam McKay, said: “Spotlight is honoured to play a part in brightening the lives of these remarkably brave children through our role as Starlight’s Official Creativity Partner. Play, creativity and imagination are vital parts of any childhood, so we are thrilled to have this opportunity to provide positive distractions and outlets for art and self-expression to kids who need it most.”
In 2023, Starlight created over 1.9 million positive Starlight experiences for children, teenagers and their families, and Captain Starlight brought fun and laughter to 120 hospitals and 134 remote communities. Starlight also granted 474 wishes in 2023, including its milestone 13,000th Starlight Wish.
So far in 2024, Spotlight, with the help of their customers raised over $177,000 for Starlight, helping to grant 23 life changing wishes and are continuing to build on these numbers throughout the year.
For more information on the work Spotlight do with Starlight, visit https://www.starlight.org.au/
