Smile for Life is charity based in Gosforth, North East, who strive to help place a smile on the face of every disabled and disadvantaged youngster.
Within the charity, there is a beautiful café, Café Beam, which gives support to enhance the life experience of disabled and disadvantaged youngsters. The youngsters help to prepare the produce being offered, as well as serving the customers with a warm welcome and operating money through the tills.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Café Beam was forced to shut their doors to the public and faced the unknown of when they could open their café again, or if they ever would.
When we heard about the struggles Smile for Life were facing we had to help, so we made a large donation to the charity at Christmas which helped reopen their café doors and put a smile back on all the youngsters faces. A good customer of ours, Joe Robinson of Harrys Bar Newcastle, also heard about the good work Smile for Life does and the struggles they were having and made a further very generous donation to the charity.
Today we teamed up with Joe Robinson of Harrys Bar, and Paula Gascoigne of Smile for Life to host an Autism Awareness event at Harrys Bar to help raise awareness of how to support people with autism in the workplace, which Smart IT sponsored.
“The event was a huge success and has helped to raise awareness of Autism in the work place, we’ve also been able to raise some much needed funding to help support the charity going forward. We’re very grateful to Smart IT, Harrys Bar, and all those who attended the event or made a donation.”
CEO Paula Gascoigne, of Smile for Life
“The event taught us how to utilise the skills of autistic individuals in the workplace and to recognise the attention to detail and passion they can bring to a role. Philippa Chaplin’s speech was extremely insightful and helped not only me, but everyone else to understand how an autistic individual’s mind works and what can trigger them.”
Sara Dobson, Smart IT
