News and events

The Next 30 Years

As the final months of our 30th Anniversary celebrations arrive, we are reflecting on what the future holds for Jessie’s Fund. Our mission is to give every child with a life-limiting illness or complex Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) a voice through music. The question is: how can we...

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Schools Programme Update

Exciting developments are coming to our schools programme. We have been granted funding from Paul Hamlyn Foundation for the next three years to improve the sustainability of our impact in schools. We will be working alongside our musician team and school partners to create an accreditation framework for specialist school...

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Support us through ShareGift

Have shares which are uneconomic to sell? Help support us by donating your small shareholdings to ShareGift, the share donation charity. ShareGift is an independent UK registered charity (No. 1052686) which specialises in releasing the money locked up in small shareholdings, but accept donations of any size. ShareGift specialise in...

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Making Music with Special Children 2025

2 women sat at keyboard with two women and a man observing

We are pleased to announce that our two-day training course is returning in November. We will be running the course in York (10th-11th) and London (17th and 18th) and we look forward to welcoming our next group of music makers. It is a practical, hands-on course that is suitable for...

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Founder Lesley Schatzberger awarded OBE

We are delighted to announce that our Founder Lesley Schatzberger has been awarded an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List 2025 for Services to Children with Life-Limiting Illnesses and Communication Difficulties. Lesley shared:  “To say that I was surprised to be awarded this honour is an understatement, and I...

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York Festival of Ideas 2025

A woman with short brown hair is holding a guitar, a boy in a red jumper is sat playing a wooden musical box with a beater.

We returned to York Festival of Ideas on Saturday 7th June with our talk ‘Making Sound Waves: Musical Transformations.’ We last spoke at the festival in 2015 as part of our 20th Anniversary celebrations and we were delighted to be back for our 30th! In this talk, our Founder Lesley...

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Support us on Givto!

A cartoon woman lying on her front reading a paper wearing a pink top and orange trousers, against a dark blue background. The text says 'support us on givto, making giving easy'

We’re delighted to announce that we’ll be featuring on Givto in July. Givto is a new way to donate to charity that allows users to give to a different cause each month with one simple Direct Debit. The service was developed by volunteers in Leeds who wanted to support local...

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Jessie’s Fund 30th Anniversary Conference

We had a wonderful time at our 30th Anniversary Conference at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester on 3rd April 2025. It was a full morning, from Lesley’s introduction sharing Jessie’s story and the creation of Jessie Fund, the group Hey Dumba samba with Mark Withers, Charles Hazlewood’s...

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