National children’s charity When You Wish Upon a Star (WYWUAS) has chosen Midlands PR agency Cartwright Communications to manage its public relations throughout the UK.

Cartwright was selected for its longstanding experience and understanding of working in the charity and not-for-profit sector.

Cartwright will raise the awareness of a number of the charity’s much-loved campaigns including Stars for Wishes and Laps for Lapland - an annual event to raise funds to take children living with a life threatening illness to meet Father Christmas in Lapland each December.

Jennie Holland, director at Cartwright Communications, says, “We are lucky enough to work for a number of charities – a sector that we have a particular interest in and to secure When You Wish Upon a Star as a client is fantastic. The charity creates magical memories for children and their families and work extremely hard to raise the funds to do so. With a creative approach, we can communicate this life-changing work and what it takes to make these dreams come true and the impact on that child’s life - in the hope to attract further donations. We will be working with all of the charity’s teams across the UK from the head office in Nottingham and its offices in Grimsby, Stockport and Edinburgh. The Cartwright team is really pleased to be part of this amazing organisation.”

WYWUAS has a simple mission, to grant the wishes of children who are seriously ill and since 1990, the charity has granted over 16,000 wishes. The charity was founded in Nottingham by Barbara White who was so inspired by a seriously ill four year old with a dream to meet Mickey Mouse, that she wanted to bring smiles to the faces of many more brave children.

Nicola Brien, regional fundraising manager for WYWUAS, says, “The charity has grown so much over the last few years as we strive to grant every wish we receive. Simply the more money we raise the more we can do and considering some children are seriously ill for many years, in addition to their wish a treat along the way gives such a huge boost and an opportunity to simply be a child. The wishes can be literally anything - in the past we have sent a little boy to the Kennedy Space Centre in the USA as he wanted to be an astronaut. A little girl wanted to meet a Cheetah in the wild so we made it possible for her to go on safari in Africa. We have also made it possible for children to meet their idols - setting up meetings with Taylor Swift and Mickey Mouse were particularly memorable!

“To continue to make more wishes come true, we are working with Cartwright Communications to increase our profile and generate awareness and excitement for a number of our annual campaigns as well as some new exciting plans we have. We chose the team at Cartwright as we were particularly impressed with their work for some of our corporate partners which achieved strategic objectives and heard nothing but positive feedback on an agency that delivers consistent results. Through PR, we can share the incredible stories of our Wish children to show our loyal supporters and potential new supporters, the difference and the magic of having a Wish granted makes to hundreds of children and their families.” She says.