Song From Hull Aims To Make It Into The UK Top 40 And Help Local Kids

Hull’s community charity Christmas song, A Winter’s Dream by The Thousand Voices and Jessika Mae, will be officially released, with the track available to download and stream across all major platforms. 

Written and recorded in Hull, and featuring over 1,000 local voices, the hope is the track will make it into the UK’s Christmas Top 40, raising as much money as possible for disadvantaged children living in East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire.   

For local children, having presents to open on Christmas morning is not a gift they all get to enjoy, with one in four living in poverty. Mission Christmas is an annual appeal to make a difference to disadvantaged children by making Christmas magical by giving them a present to open on Christmas Day.

In September, Hull’s Bonus Arena challenged the city’s local community to write and record a Christmas song for the region, in a bid to raise money for the appeal. The challenge was accepted with local singer and winner of the Hull Daily Mail’s Star Search, Jessika Mae, offering to lead the project, followed by Casey Adam, Oli Hatfield and Helen Garnett all offering their help.

As word about the project spread, the team were contacted by schools from across the region offering the support of choirs, or even whole schools, to sing on the track.

Recorded and mastered at Element Studios in Hull, the finished track features over 1,000 local school children, as well as the almost 400-strong All for One community choir, with vocal arrangements by Helen Garnett.

The song is available from this Friday (6 December), it costs 99p to download from all major outlets with 100% of the price going to support children and young people living in poverty in the local area.

Jessika Mae, explained: “When I heard about this campaign I was eager to get involved and help. It has been so much fun and I am very confident that this song will raise lots of money for this wonderful cause.”

Mission Christmas lead Kathryn Biggin at Cash for Kids, the charity behind the appeal, said: “This song stands as proof of what our local community can achieve as a collective and we’re so thankful for the hard work and generosity of everyone involved.

“Here at Cash for Kids we were absolutely blown away to learn that Bonus Arena and a team of businesses wanted to record and release a song in aid of our Mission Christmas appeal. It’s amazing that so many people have got involved all in an effort to ensure that we make Christmas magical for the children in our region living in poverty at risk of waking up to nothing on Christmas Day. A heartfelt thank you to everyone, we are so excited!

“The next chapter of the story is in the hands of the people of East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire, imagine getting our local kids into to the Official UK Charts this festive season! It costs just 99p to download the track and best of all, 100% of the price is donated to support children and young people living in poverty in the local area, via Cash for Kids Mission Christmas campaign, to help give them the magical Christmas they deserve.”

Head of Sales and Marketing at the Bonus Arena, Paul Savage, said: “We came up with the idea a year ago to write and record an original Christmas song to raise money for a local charity and it has been incredible to see the project develop. We’ve collectively written and recorded the song and now we have a video too! It’s been fantastic fun to see so many people pull together and now we hope the community will get behind the song, dig deep and help local children this Christmas.”

Many organisations across the city have come together to make the campaign possible. Clearanswer Contact Centre team in Hull ensured no costs were incurred by the project and that all money raised goes straight to Mission Christmas. Local creative businesses Drunk Animal Creative, Restart Productions and Home PR offered their services for free to help make the song as successful as possible.

‘A Winter’s Dream’ by The Thousand Voices and Jessika Mae is available now to pre-order from all digital music download stores, including Amazon Music, i-Tunes and Google Play Music. On average a song needs to achieve around 8,000 downloads to enter the Top 40. The single’s chart position will be determined on Friday 13 December.