I hope you are all well and enjoying this (rainy!) extra day of 2024.

Here are the latest totals as of today.

Total items sent out in February – 3,710
Total items sent out in 2024 – 10,655
Total items sent out since 1998 – 1,038,103

Grassroots Magazine

We have received tremendous coverage in the above online magazine which focuses on all things non league and grassroots football across Essex.
Our relationship came about thanks to Regional Co-ordinator Barrie N contacting them at the start of his “25 for 25” Challenge when he visited 25 Clubs across Essex. Since then we have appeared in 13 issues, often with 3 or 4 page articles as well as appearing on front covers. Thanks to Barrie for writing articles and for keeping the relationship strong.
Here is a link to the last issue, which as you can see includes Sir Mo at our last Hatfield boxing up session.
https://issuu.com/grassrootsmagonline/docs/grass_roots_feb_24

Regional HUB’s

Although KitAid works predominantly from our storage units in Hemel Hempstead and Hatfield, we are very fortunate to have two other sites in Merseyside and Scotland.
Thanks to our close links with Everton Heritage Society in Liverpool and Diamonds in the Community in Airdrie kit is stored and also handed over to charities from these sites.
A big thank you to Richie and Paul in Liverpool and to Dougie and Gordon in Scotland for making this happen.
It is also incredibly helpful for the charities who collect kit from these sites as otherwise they would have to travel hundreds of miles to Hertfordshire.

London Football Ground Sponsored Walk

In a few weeks time, on March 20, 21 and 22, Chris T our Aylesbury RC, and a couple of friends, will be walking to every EFL/PL ground in London, in support of KitAid. Over all 3 days they will walk 67 miles starting from Arsenal on Wednesday morning and eventually finishing on Friday afternoon at the Bobby Moore statue at Wembley.

This is an incredibly tough task, made even more arduous by having to drop down to Sutton United, adding on extra miles. Unfortunately they couldn’t find a sponsor to cover their costs and are meeting accommodation, travel and food expenses themselves. To save money they are staying in shared Air B&B rooms, and from a picture I saw, even an Estate Agent would struggle to write a glowing reference for a room with 3 bunk beds and not enough space to swing a cat!

We appreciate times are tough for everyone, but if you are able to sponsor them I know they would appreciate it. It will make those miles to Sutton more bearable, knowing they will most likely be relegated to non-league if they had left the walk until June!! Here is a link to their Just Giving page
https://www.justgiving.com/page/chris-turton-james-andteam1705612763068

FOMO FC – Promoted to the Malawi Super League

They finally did it, despite the original referee being bribed in favour of the opposition, which fortunately was discovered before the match.

It is an incredible achievement as the team is mostly made up of orphans supported by our very good friends FOMO Malawi. The town of Mulanje has never had a Super League side and following their Play Off victory, there were celebrations for many days. The Super League season starts on 1 April and it will be very tough for the guys both on and off the pitch.

Congratulations to Mary Woodworth, who has always been the driving force in giving young people in Mulanje sporting opportunities. We are proud to have supported Mary with kit donations and some project sponsorship over many years. We are looking into a project to help them raise funds as they will have additional costs playing at the top level.

Social Media sites

Some of you will be aware that we now have a LinkedIn site which is growing in followers. Thanks to Ben W who manages this for us, with regular updates. Ben also arranged for me to be interviewed on the Sports Friends podcast #AlreadyWon

If you are a regular LinkedIn user please follow us and share our stories to spread the word.

Thanks to all of our Regional Co-ordinators and volunteers who do a fantastic job in collecting and storing kit for us. This is the engine room which keeps KitAid running like a well oiled Formula 1 machine. We are building up stock for the next kit sorting session at Hatfield which will hopefully be in early April.

Have a good March and thank you for your support.

Derrick