News story
16 October 2026
Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) has been crowned Charity of the Year at the 2026 National Charity Today Awards – widely recognised as the ‘Oscars’ of the charitable sector. ACT also topped the Fundraiser of the Year and public-voted People’s Choice Award categories, as well as being highly commended in Volunteer of the Year and PR Team of the Year. With three wins and two runner-up placements, ACT was the most awarded finalist at yesterday’s awards ceremony.
We do an extraordinary range of brilliant things and it never, ever – not in the eight years I’ve worked for the charity – fails to stop me in my tracks and think ‘This is incredible’.
Accepting the Charity of the Year award alongside members of the team, Director of Communications & Impact Paul White said: “When I first got into this sector, I thought ‘If we get this right, we can change the world’ and 20-odd years later I am in absolutely no doubt that we genuinely do change the world. Whether that’s by improving an individual’s experience of a day in hospital or creating a new cure for a disease that impacts people all over the world, we all play a part in making this world a better place.
“Our charity, Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, has been around for 30 years and in that time we’ve stood with researchers, clinicians, nurses, midwives, volunteers, supporters, fundraisers. Together we share this relentless drive to push what’s possible in healthcare for the ones we love.”
Funding cutting-edge equipment, specialist staff, extra comforts and pioneering research that helps change and save lives, above and beyond what the NHS can provide, ACT has been supporting innovation in patient care at Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie hospitals in Cambridge for three decades. Over that period, supporters have raised more than £150 million to fund everything from cancer research and a robotic surgeon to children’s laughter and play specialists. The charity is now supporting the development of two new hospitals, both set to revolutionise care in the East of England: Cambridge Children’s Hospital and Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital.
Added Paul: “Thanks to the extraordinary commitment of people like Sally who volunteers for us, or Jack who runs marathons for us, or Alfred’s parents who do amazing fundraising for us, we get to make projects happen that give women with ovarian cancer more time to spend with their families; give patients who’ve got incurable kidney cancer hope of a long, healthy future; create spaces that remove the fear and anxiety that children go through when they come into hospital; and bring hope that conditions like Parkinson’s might one day be cured.
“We do an extraordinary range of brilliant things and it never, ever – not in the eight years I’ve worked for the charity – fails to stop me in my tracks and think ‘This is incredible’. I feel slightly fraudulent standing here and accepting this award, as I know it wouldn’t have happened without all the brilliant people we work with: the lovely people who work for the charity and the amazing people who give up their time, sometimes because of really challenging circumstances, to give back. So thank you to all of them. And thank you to the awards team too: this is really special for us.”
“When I first got into this sector, I thought ‘If we get this right, we can change the world’ and 20-odd years later I am in absolutely no doubt that we genuinely do change the world.”
Winner of the People’s Choice Award, which was decided by a public vote, was Alfred’s Potato Day. Inspired by their 5-year-old son Alfred and the random ‘pet potato’ he found in hospital grounds during his 19-month treatment for neuroblastoma, parents Carla and Dave Johnson, from Tiptree, launched the fundraiser in his memory last November. Inviting supporters to place potatoes anywhere and everywhere – from skyscrapers to dance studios – the event invited donations from participants and captured imaginations the world over.
Crediting ACT-funded services such as play and laughter specialists with helping Alfred ‘smile through it all’, right up until his death shortly before his 6th birthday, the Johnsons hope Alfred’s Potato Day, which takes place on November 21 this year, will become an annual fixture.
Taking a potato on stage with them to accept the award – complete with stick-on googly eyes, something else Alfred loved to play with while undergoing treatment – Carla and Dave also sneakily placed a spud on every table ahead of the ceremony. Sparking conversations around the room, it wasn’t until the People’s Choice category was announced that guests realised their significance.
Carla said: “Thank you so much everyone who voted. And also thank you very much to Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, because our son Alfred – we have him represented here with his cuddly toy and a potato – had treatment at Addenbrooke’s for 19 months for a really rare and aggressive cancer. Sadly, he didn’t make it, but we fundraised in his memory by fulfilling a promise that we made to him to replace a potato we found on the grounds of Addenbrooke’s.
“While we had our 19 months of treatment at Addenbrooke’s, every step along the way, we came across staff, services, equipment, medical trials, wonderful people, all who wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust. They fund so many incredible things, from play workers through to special scanning machines; just so many things you don’t really think about, but they make the journey an awful lot better.
“You might notice on the tables there are potatoes – you have probably all been wondering ‘Why is there a potato on the table?’ The idea of Alfred’s Potato Day is that on November 21 this year, we are going to leave a potato in an unexpected place and encourage everyone else to do the same, and to raise money on our Just Giving page for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust. And now that you all have a potato, I’m afraid you are all in on it as well – if you do want to take part, you can google Alfred’s Potato Day 2026 and find all the details.”
Colchester’s Jack Sibbons – who ran the 2026 London Marathon for twin sister Amy De Silva and baby nephew Chester, whose lives were both saved by Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie Hospitals – won Fundraiser of the Year. When Amy was diagnosed with leukaemia at 10 weeks pregnant, doctors told her she may not be able to keep her son, yet despite going through four rounds of chemo and recurrent sepsis, both mum and baby made it. Through sponsorship and events, Jack raised a staggering £43,000 in a matter of months for the charity.
Speaking after the ceremony, Jack said: “I am just delighted to give some form of payback to the hospital that saved my sister’s life and baby Chester’s as well. You are the reason I ran the marathon, Sis – I’ve done it for you and am so happy, obviously, that you and Chester are here to see it. For ACT to win Charity of the Year just topped it off – it’s been a brilliant day.”
Cambridge’s Sally Laight was highly commended in the Volunteer of the Year category. Sally credits the NHS with saving her life ‘20 times over’ during a four-year battle with colon cancer, which saw her undergo multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and emergency care for septic shock. Based in Cambridge, she started volunteering to give something back to Addenbrooke’s, where she was treated, and within a year became ACT’s most prolific volunteer. Her voluntary work sees her support people waiting in Oncology, including fellow cancer patients. Accepting her trophy, Sally said: “Addenbrooke’s has been amazing: thank you for the opportunity, thank you for everything.”
Comprising just six staff members, ACT’s communications team was also highly commended in the PR Team of the Year category. Between them, they operate multiple campaigns annually across all platforms, reaching millions through print and digital press coverage alone. A focus on finding and sharing human-interest stories drives this engagement, with ACT’s Amazing People, the team’s own flagship show on Cambridge Radio, developed and presented by PR and Communications Lead Danni Smith.
Speaking at the ceremony, Danni said: “At the heart of everything we do, it’s all about the people: the clinicians, the researchers, the volunteers, the fundraisers. We’ve got some very special fundraisers with us today, who’ve let us into their lives during some really hard times, and we really appreciate that. So this for all of you – thank you.”
The gala final of the 2026 National Charity Today Awards was held at Holiday Inn Peterborough West. With a blue and gold theme, which extended to the dress code, the daytime ceremony had all the glamour of an evening event, complete with celebratory balloon décor, a sit-down dinner and live entertainment between the presentations. A raffle was held in aid of the Charity of the Year, with £300 therefore going to ACT at the end of the day.
Created to celebrate “organisations and individuals who demonstrate exceptional impact, innovation and dedication to making communities better”, the National Charity Today Awards are sponsored by Sinclair Method UK and feature a rigorous judging process led by industry experts and sector leaders.
Donate to Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust here.
Alfred’s Potato Day: the story of a little boy’s legacy
On November 15 last year, potatoes began popping up in the strangest places. On a skyscraper balcony in Hong Kong. At a Scottish Country Dancing class in Detroit. In front of Peterborough Cathedral. And all over the grounds of Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.
The guerrilla operation was part of Alfred’s Potato Day, a fundraiser held in memory of 5-year-old Alfred Johnson who, while undergoing 19 months of gruelling treatment for stage four high-risk neuroblastoma, found a random spud sitting on the grass on his route to daily treatment and ‘adopted’ it.
“Whatever the outcome, we wanted today to be the best it could be for Alfred. And I can honestly say that he had some really happy times at the hospital – in fact he loved it there. It became so familiar to him, he felt like he owned the place.”
“We had to visit it every day on our way to treatment; he liked to check on it,” smiles mum Carla. “Then one day it wasn’t there – or it was, but it had been mown over and squashed! We promised Alfred we’d replace the potato next time we went back to the hospital, not knowing then that we wouldn’t be going back. . .”
Tragically, Alfred’s cancer had gone beyond treatment and he died in August 2025, just a month before his 6th birthday. “It sounds mad, but we knew he’d want us to go back and replace the potato for him, so we did,” continues Carla. “And that’s how Alfred’s Potato Day came about.”
Along with “a never-ending curiosity in the world around him”, Alfred had, says Carla, a tireless sense of fun – the silliness of having a ‘pet potato’ tickled him. “Alfred loved to play. Of course he did. He was 5 years old. But Alfred loved to play even when the high-dose chemo was so strong it had wiped out all of his bone marrow.”
Set to become an annual fixture, the debut Potato Day event spread across the world via nothing more than worth of mouth. As well as placing tubers in strange places for others to discover and wonder over, just like Alfred did, supporters ate jacket potato lunches, whipped up batches of potato soup and, in the case of one Johnson family friend, even dressed up as a potato.
Every participant was invited to make a donation to Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), whose supporters fund many of the services and activities that brought Alfred joy in what could have been the darkest of times, from the play and laughter specialists, toys and games to the arts programmes. In total, £1,180 was raised.
“I actually work for a children’s mental health charity myself,” says Carla. “People might think things to make kids smile are kind of secondary when they’re in hospital; the main thing is saving their life, which, yeah, fair enough. But actually, you’re not going to get through the treatment if you don’t feel resilient, and you’re not going to feel resilient if you don’t feel like the hospital is a place you want to be.”
Seemingly small things – like playing with a toy MRI machine ahead of a scan, reducing fear and stress of the real thing – can make a big difference, adds Carla. “Because those things aren’t statutorily funded, supporting ACT is a good way to make sure they are happening; to make sure that other children can benefit. It sounds cheesy, but supporting ACT is our way of giving back.”
It was in the January of 2024 that Alfred, suffering with recurrent tummy aches, first went to the doctor. On the third visit, with no explanation obvious, he was referred to hospital for ‘belt and braces’ tests. His parents, Carla and Dave, thought he might have a dairy or gluten intolerance; aside from his tummy problems, Alfred was fit, well and – passionate about everything from arts, crafts and gardening to volcanoes – as full of beans as always.
“We’re doing something that we know Alfred loved, and if it makes other people smile – if it makes someone at Addenbrooke’s walking past ask themselves why on Earth there’s a potato there and pop back and visit – that’s brilliant.”
Within an hour of the first scan being done, the Johnsons’ world was upended. A 17cm tumour – “about the size of a watermelon” – was discovered in Alfred’s abdomen, along with metastases on his liver and lung. Transferred by ambulance to Addenbrooke’s that same morning, Alfred’s treatment began immediately.
“I didn’t know what it meant at that time; whether he’d live, whether he’d die,” recounts Carla. “But both Dave and I were of the same mindset: whatever the outcome, we wanted today to be the best it could be for Alfred. And I can honestly say that he had some really happy times at the hospital – in fact he loved it there. It became so familiar to him, he felt like he owned the place.”
“He knew he was getting medicine to hopefully make himself get better,” continues Carla, who initially described the cancer to Alfred as a ‘cheeky tumour’. “Even though he didn’t like being poked and prodded, he knew the people there were doing it for good reasons. And he really trusted and he really loved them all. And that really surprised me.”
Alfred, from Tiptree, Essex, battled through aggressive induction chemo, abdominal surgery to remove the main tumour, high-dose chemo that wiped out his bone marrow as well as a life-saving stem cell transplant, 20 sessions of radiotherapy and months of immunotherapy. Following his relapse in early 2025, he went through a further eight months of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Throughout everything – and despite serious complications that caused sickness, loss of appetite, veno-occlusive disease and dangerous levels of pressure behind the eyes – he still found joy in every day.
“For people on the outside looking in, it was hard to believe how ill Alfred was, as he really didn’t let cancer and hospital get in the way of having a great time,” says Carla. “Even when bedbound and in isolation, he still managed to have fun, making friends with hospital staff and other patients, playing with his favourite toy Mee Mee, watching Wallace and Gromit films, playing hide and seek in his hospital room, learning about volcanoes and earthquakes and coming up with new crafts and inventions. . . Even when we were at the hospice, he got all the staff on board to create a lemonade stand for him to make and sell lemonade.”
Bright, enquiring and engaging, Alfred’s interests were many and varied. Nursing an ambition to become a farmer, he enjoyed tending his vegetables and herb garden at home – and adored the wildflowers grown at Addenbrooke’s so much, Carla has them tattooed on her abdomen along the same line as Alfred’s surgery scar.
Alfred loved spending time with his family and friends; Carla recounts him getting up early every morning he was at home to play with his sister, Matilda, now 9, and “making cake mix out of anything he could find in the kitchen”. A natural explorer, he enjoyed trips to the Lake District, Norfolk and Cornwall, going up mountains, inside mines, to the beach and playing in fields and woods, and scooting all over the Addenbrooke’s site – which is how he, Carla and Dave stumbled across that first, now-famous potato.
Taking place on November 21, Alfred’s Potato Day 2026 is set to be even bigger than the first. Updates are being shared @AlfredTheGreatest on Instagram and participants are encouraged to share their potato fun using #AlfredsPotatoDay.
Says Carla: “Wherever you are in the world you can take part, you just need to leave a potato somewhere safe but unexpected – we don’t want potatoes in the middle of the road or anything like that! But leave a potato somewhere in your local area and if you google Alfred’s Potato Day 2026, you can find our Just Giving page where we are fundraising and there’s also information on there about how to tell us about where you are in the world. If anyone doesn’t feel entirely comfortable leaving a potato in an unexpected location, we are also encouraging people to cook their favourite potato meal, so that might be mashed potato and gravy, it might be a baked potato with your favourite topping – anything potato related and you can get involved.”
“We’re doing something that we know Alfred loved,” Carla adds. “And if it makes other people smile – if it makes someone at Addenbrooke’s walking past ask themselves why on Earth there’s a potato there and pop back and visit – that’s brilliant.”
As Carla wrote in her eulogy for her son: “Alfred didn’t get the chance he deserved to make a name for himself. But there are some things you can do to keep his memory alive. Never stop being curious about the world around you. Be a kind friend, and find a bit of silliness in every day. Plant some flowers and grow some veg. Buy all the craft supplies; cover everything in wool and glitter. Do whatever you can to make this world one where no child dies, whether by cancer, war, poverty or other illnesses.”
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