We always ask for feedback from the charities we partner with and in most cases we receive it. Sometimes we receive an email or letter which really stands out and makes you realise the power of what we do. The following did exatly that and the fact that our shirts have probably allowed 2 boys to attend a school which they could not previously afford to do, is quite humbling. Please see the following note received by Ben (van Nes) from one of his projects.

"We greatly appreciate your contribution to facilitate our programme of empowering youth through sports in Kenya. The provission of football kit from KITAID has made our dream come true.This could not have been possible without the KITAID team that has worked tirelessly to make a difference in people`s lives. The impact of football has been felt across the whole county of Bumula in Kenya. Youth are nolonger idling around shopping centres and being involved in antisocial behaviour.

Within the last 2 years 32 youth teams have been issued with football kits in Bumula county. 2 students who had been dropped out of school for lack of fees have been admitted in two sports oriented schools with free education bursaries. Their talent was sported by school sports representatives who attended one of our annual football events. These events are used to gather communities and mostly targetting youth to alleviate idleness and antisocial behaviour by engaging and empowering them on issues of health,unemployment, identity and self worth. This is done by organising interactive workshops and video clips.

5 primary schools received football uniform and it was very exciting when whole school Activities were paralysed,all class lessons cancelled and parade assembled just to receive the uniform. They had never had any uniform since the foundation of their schools which dates back as far as 1965.(Since Independence) They always played with one team removing their shirts (topless ) during their inter- school competitions, now they cant wait for the season to beggin. All this was made possible by contribution of Kits from KITAID. This years event which takes place in August will even be bigger and better, involving nearly 20 teams across the county and other 10 different sports activities"

We have been holding some funds as "ringfenced" for special projects and this week we were able to let the charity partners know they had been chosen.

We decided to make the grants to small charities we know who can make the money go a long way and they will use it for projects which match our purpose.

The chosen projects were:

  • Ballysillan Belfast Football Camp £550
  • Malealea Sports Committee, Lesotho £900
  • TAFCE – The Gambia £600
  • MPiD – Uganda £600

The response from the charities has been fantastic and I think we all wish we could be Bill Gates for a day and donate much more.

KitAid is not really about fundraising and we were fortunate to receive separate donations from the Charlie Fidler Memorial Fund and Spalding Grammar School

It is nice to be able to support projects that will leave a lasting legacy

We’ve set up an account for KitAid with Easyshopping and we now need to try and promote it to our supporters to encourage them to register.  It is really easy (hence the name!) and could be beneficial for us, as if you choose KitAid as your preferred charity we will recive a payment for every online purchase made with some really big organisations, i.e. Amazon, Argos, Tesco and hundreds more well known names.

If you do shop online please register and please encourage your friends to do the same.  It has been a very slow start, despite some publicity across Affinity Water, our web and twitter sites.

You may remember we entered into a charity partnership last year with the HFA.

Apart from Louisa attending some of our boxing up sessions we haven’t really had the time to launch or develop the partnership further but we are about to do so.

Louisa has arranged for all of the County Cup Finals (25 in all) to be made KitAid events and we have designed a poster which will be included in their programme and sent to all competing finalists.

The CEO of HFA will be joining us at our next boxing up session and we have also been invited to attend their annual awards event in June, so the launch is taking off.

I am really pleased with this partnership as if we can prove it works we can hopefully introduce it across other County FA’s.