L to R : Gary Moore, Ian Paice and Roger Glover at The Sunflower Jam '07. Photo:Fin Costello

About the Sunflower Jam

These special evenings are to raise awareness and money and all proceeds from these events go to The Sam Buxton Sunflower Healing Trust for more therapists to work in this important area by providing emotional and physical support, both within the Acute Cancer Care Unit and Outpatient’s Department, supporting patients from diagnosis to journeys end.

Angie Buxton-King (author of The NHS Healer - written to demonstrate how the holistic model of care was so important in her own son Sam’s journey through cancer) now manages this unique team and her husband Graham King (a healer whose work has been featured in the national press and on a documentary on the BBC) has been an enormous help to the many children and their carers who have received treatments.

Both Ian Paice and Jon Lord have visited the children undergoing treatments and receiving therapies to see for themselves the integrated care and facilities at the hospital. As a result of these visits the idea of this fundraising evening was born. With support from HRH The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, which aims to facilitate the development of safe, effective and efficient forms of healthcare by encouraging conventional and complementary practitioners to work together to promote a holistic approach for the individual.

Who is The Sunflower Jam?

The concept of The Sunflower Jam was developed by Jacky Paice. After being approached by Angie and Graham from The Sam Buxton Sunflower Healing Trust about fund raising ideas Jacky thought it was about time to put her and Ian’s contacts to good use.

Gathering her family around her, there were brainstorming sessions held and finally the idea of the ‘Jam’ was conceived.

Jacky’s vision was always to hold a small, intimate event that brought together people with a passion for music both in the audience and on stage, making the evening a fun way to raise money while avoiding the usual stuffiness of charity events.

Promptly, the dining room of the Paice family home was overtaken as the office and all conversations related to the event. Over the past two years every member of Jacky’s family and extended family have been involved with the events in some way. James her son is involved with organising the music, eldest daughter Emmy and niece Amy with production and youngest daughter Calli-Beth with finding the dancers. Add to this a network of friends and the result is a truly family organized event!

"I can't recommend enough the value of this resource within the service."

- Dr Maria Michelagnoli - Consultant Paediatric/Adolescent Oncologist

The effect the money raised has had on the physical, emotional and mental well-being of the hospital patients and staff, cannot be over estimated, thank you and please do keep donating.

What the sunflower jam has achieved!

The Sunflower Jam 2006 raised over £90K. The Sunflower Jam 2007 went on to raise a further £100k in funds for the charity www.cancertherapies.org.uk ! With the funds raised they employed 5 therapists to support cancer patients at University College London Hospital (UCLH). With your financial support children, teenagers and adult cancer patients have received hundreds of supportive treatments that they would otherwise have not been able to access.

We need your help to support this years 'Sunflower Jam to enable the therapists to continue to provide this service at UCLH and to expand their work to fund therapists in other cancer centres. They have several pilot projects around the country to enable this fantastic model of integrated care to be available to many more cancer patients in the UK. The charities new patron offers the following endorsement of their work...

"I am a paediatric and adolescent oncologist at University College Hospital. We have been privileged to have a team of therapists working alongside ourselves since the event last year. They have provided therapy to troubled/ anxious children and young people and their families, are supportive of those chronically unwell and have been utilized for specific difficulties such as needle-phobia. In addition, they have provided important staff support; the roles are varied and dependent on the preferences of families and children. It is hard to imagine how the service would function without the support and dedication of our particular team."