The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service

Mad Hatter's Children's Charity Wins Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service

Mad Hatter’s Children’s Charity, which helps children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, has been honoured with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service 2016, the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK.

Based in Solihull we provide fun and exciting educational events and activities for over 2000 children every year. Over the last ten years around 16000 children have benefitted from our events and activities, and we regularly engage over 90 specials schools across the West Midlands. Our biggest event of the year, the Mad Hatter’s Summer Tea Party, is held at Birmingham Botanical Gardens and hosts nearly 1000 children with special educational needs and disabilities.

The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service is the highest award given to local volunteer groups across the UK to recognise outstanding work in their communities. The awards were created in 2002 to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and winners are announced each year on 2 June – the anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation.

“I warmly congratulate all of the inspirational voluntary groups who have been rewarded for their community work with a Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. The judging panel for this year’s awards were struck by the quality and breadth of all the successful groups. The thousands of volunteers who give up spare time to help others in their community and to help solve problems demonstrate the very best of democracy in action.”

— The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service Committee Chair, former broadcast journalist Sir Martyn Lewis

Elizabeth Ellis, trustee of the Mad Hatter’s Children’s Charity, attended a garden party at Buckingham Palace on Thursday 19th May where she met the Queen and other winners of this year’s award.

“This is a great honour, and recognition of many years of hard work that has made Mad Hatter’s events such a success, and so important to the children we work with. Of course everything we do is heavily reliant on volunteers and the generosity of our supporters, so this Award is really for them. I really hope it encourages more people to support our work, so we can help even more children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.”

— Elizabeth Ellis, trustee of Mad Hatter's Children's Charity