The Impact of Jingle Jam 2024

Thanks to your incredible support in 2024, we’ve funded eight transformational projects that directly improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and young people, helping also to protect the future of the planet for all of us.

Right now your donations are funding:

  • Life-saving support for almost 35,000 young people considering suicide
  • Work to keep 89 million trees standing in the Peruvian Amazon
  • Protection and education for over 340,000 children affected by war
  • Support for over 6,000 young LGBTQ+ people in crisis
  • Pioneering research into new Sarcoma treatments
  • A new toolkit for young Autistic people struggling at school
  • The education and empowerment of the next generation of ocean conservationists
  • A brand new facility for patients and their families at Bristol Children’s Hospital

Improving the Mental and Physical Health of Young People

Help for young people considering suicide

Mental wellbeing is a cause deeply important to Jingle Jam supporters, so we’ve continued to partner strategically with UK suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM).

Our support helps them to answer calls from young people to their life-saving suicide prevention helpline 365 days a year. Jingle Jam 2024 raised enough to fund almost 35,000 calls to CALM's life-saving helpline - calls like this one, as shared by one of the helpline staff:

“I work on the CALM helpline. I recently spoke with a 19-year-old who was struggling deeply with what being transgender meant for them. They had decided to take their own life.

I asked about their struggles, listening with total empathy, and reminding them they are always worth hearing. I built enough trust for them to open up, which helped to ground them and release the pressure on their shoulders. We talked about their future and planned the next steps of support. Ultimately, I 'walked' them back from a point of crisis and helped them choose to stay.

They called the next day to say their conversation with me had saved their life.”

CALM has also used Jingle Jam funding to produce a mental health toolkit for Community Managers, designed to help creators and game developers safeguard their communities.

Revolutionising care for critically-ill children

The ground-breaking Jingle Jam Building, the first of its kind in the UK, will provide therapy, rehabilitation and family accommodation all under one roof for up to 100 long-term patients per year at Bristol Children’s Hospital.

This long-term project, headed by Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, is now coming to fruition, with planning permission granted and construction on track to commence in late 2025. This means Jingle Jam Building will open in 2027!

This facility will soon make an enormous difference to children and families across the South West region of the UK, families with stories like Freddie’s:

Last year, a sudden, aggressive virus meant three-year-old Freddie suddenly became fatally ill. As his heart, liver and kidneys shut down, he was rushed from his local hospital in South Wales to Bristol Children’s Hospital, where he began a four-month hospital journey.

Jingle Jam Building will provide on-site therapy, rehabilitation and family accommodation. It would've allowed Freddie's parents and sister to stay by his side as he fought to get better.

The facility will help ensure children can face their recovery with their families with them - all thanks to the Jingle Jam community.

Vickie, Freddie’s mum, says

“It would’ve been incredible if Jingle Jam Building had existed at the time Freddie was in hospital because we could’ve stayed together, as a family, and had his sister with us as Freddie carried out his neurorehabilitation. It’s such a wonderful idea, and hopefully, families in the future can stay together while their children undergo treatment.”

Improving outcomes for young people affected by cancer

Sarcoma is a rare type of cancer that can appear anywhere in the body. Certain types of sarcoma particularly affect children and young people.

Through grants to Sarcoma UK, Jingle Jam has funded vital projects driving progress for everyone affected by sarcoma, accelerating research into new treatments and improving patient care. Sarcoma UK now reaches more people than ever before, offering support, information, and hope, working to prevent tragedies like Jessica’s:

Jessica Trant died aged just 19 in June 2024 after being diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a type that most commonly affects children and young adults. She had a tumour the size of a grapefruit in her upper body.

Patrick, Jessica’s father, says:

“Jessica is remembered and missed every day. With no known cause and insufficient research, there is an urgent need to better understand sarcoma, which is a devastating disease.”

Sarcoma UK is now funding pioneering research to develop better treatments for Ewing’s sarcoma.

One promising study is exploring how 'cancer-bursting' oncolytic viruses could be used to directly kill Ewing sarcoma cells or activate the body's immune system to fight them.

Through research like this, we hope that future families won’t face the heartbreak that Jessica’s loved ones have endured.

Inclusion of Neurodivergent, Disabled, LGBT+ and Diverse Young People

Support for young LGBTQ+ young people

Amid ongoing attacks on LGBTQ+ young people, The Trevor Project’s suicide prevention and crisis intervention programs ensure youth know they are not alone and have the support they need to thrive.

Using Jingle Jam funds, Trevor served over 6,632 crisis contacts, advancing their mission to uplift LGBTQ+ youth.

One evening, a young person experiencing the urge to self-harm reached out to The Trevor Project. A trained crisis counsellor provided immediate, compassionate support, validating their feelings and working to de-escalate the situation. The young person, initially holding scissors, eventually agreed to put them down and stay connected through the conversation.

With continued affirmation and resources—including a reminder of a supportive sister—they left the conversation feeling safe and no longer in crisis.

As one Trevor Crisis Services user shared,

“To go from being told others won’t love you to ‘we already love and accept you’ was life-saving, quite honestly.”

Support for neurodiverse young people waiting for diagnosis

After having funded their new mental health tips hub last year, we’re now helping Autistica develop a new toolkit for young people who need better support in schools while awaiting a formal autism diagnosis.

In England, over 137,000 people on the autism diagnosis waitlist are under 18. Long waits prevent them from accessing the support they need. Autistica is testing The ICF Digital Toolkit™ with 30-50 autistic students on the waitlist to offer schools a quicker way to assess strengths and needs and personalise support.

Davina, parent of Bayden (12), told us:

“The toolkit gives me something to go to my child when they are like: ‘Oh, I’m stupid.’ I can go, ‘Well, actually, you’re not. Look, here it is. This is how your brain works; all these things that you can do that your friends can’t do.”

Safeguarding the Future of the Planet for Young People by Combating Climate Change and Protecting Animal Welfare

Combating global warming

Through support for Cool Earth, Jingle Jam 2024 is helping cool the planet by keeping 89 million trees standing in the Peruvian Amazon, and supporting 9,740 people in 22 rainforest communities to protect their forests and improve their lives.

Communities like Asháninka’s:

Devastating floods swept through Peru's rainforest, destroying homes and crops across Indigenous communities that protect millions of acres of Amazon forest. These families—including Asháninka’s—our planet's frontline forest guardians, lost everything overnight to extreme weather worsened by climate change.

Said Asháninka: “We need support, and we need it urgently because we are drowning.”

Our grant meant Cool Earth could act immediately. Emergency funding was sent straight to CARE, a local Indigenous organisation already helping their neighbours.

Within hours, they delivered food, clean water and clothing to families in desperate need.

"I want to express deep gratitude to allies like Cool Earth," said CARE's leader Angel Pedro Valerio.

Supporting forest communities in crisis ensures they can continue protecting the forests we all depend on.

In addition to funding for grants, Jingle Jam funding has also paid for fire training to help tackle wildfires, the number one cause of deforestation.

We’ve helped train 50 community members in forest fire management, and assisted in creating digital mapping to record key wildlife spots and identify locations of threats.

Image Credit: CARE

Through your support, Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) aims to inspire and empower the next generation of conservationists with the amazing world of dolphins. They’re funding interactive educational workshops in remote communities of South America, and rolling out a free, globally accessible online education course.

By the end of 2025, WDC’s partners in South America will reach more than 2,500 indigenous children and communities, work with more than 20 new schools, and run 90 educational workshops to inspire children to protect the endangered Amazon River dolphins and their homes.

Alongside this, the WDC Dolphin Defenders Online learning course will launch globally at the start of 2026, aiming to reach over 300 schools and 20,000 students with interactive learning modules about dolphins.

Inspiring the next generation of conservationists

In addition, the game-changing ‘Jingle Jam boat’ has enabled WDC’s education partner in Iquitos, Peru to reach remote indigenous communities along the Peruvian Amazon River.

This has been transformational for the team - in the first 6 months of 2025, they’ve run 20 workshops in 12 different schools with a total of 1,450 students, reached one new, previously inaccessible community in Padre Cocha, and made essential population estimates of river dolphins living in this area.

Each child completing the environmental education workshop created their own dolphin artwork and made a promise: ‘’I promise to protect river dolphins’’.

Support for Young People Affected by Global Events Including Poverty, Disasters, Epidemics, or Conflicts

Protecting and educating children affected by war

Jingle Jam strategic partner War Child is driven by a single goal: ensuring a safe future for every child affected by war. They work in the hardest to reach places to protect, educate and advocate for the rights of children, when they need them most - because no child should be part of war, ever.

So far in 2025, War Child has reached over 340,000 children and young people impacted by conflict across multiple conflict zones, with vital help and support.

Jingle Jam funds are helping to provide counselling for children and adults suffering from traumatic experiences in Gaza, support displaced children in the DRC to reunite with their families, and roll out child protection and education programmes in Sudan.

War Child is there for children like Adam from Gaza.

Before the war, eight-year-old Adam had simpler hopes and dreams. He looked forward to computer games, maths lessons and playing with his friends. Now, after more than a year of devastating war, Adam can only dream of the violence ending.

War Child are helping children like Adam to experience some normalcy despite the daily traumas they face. Even in the most difficult of circumstances, when aid is limited, War Child is still able to provide mental health services through local partners.

Adam tells us how much he loves War Child’s activities: “They let us play, sing, draw and paint!”

It is in these safe spaces that children like Adam can escape the nightmare of war and be a child again.