Wwe received some great photos of Cardiff City kit being used by boys at the Somalia School for Dead Children.  Ismail who collected the kit from us sent us a fantastic note, please find an extract below:

"We were informed that no team plays with the deaf team. Our colleague hired an AstroTurf and arranged matches with other groups.

They enjoyed Man U & Cardif City kits and proudly held their heads high.

The smiles, excitement and joy on their faces no one could describe, he says. Our colleague's time as you might imagined was laughter in one minute and tears on his eyes in the other.

They also acknowledged someone in the other side of the world cares and showed appreciation and thankfulness through their teachers and heads. He says ''this is the best thing I have ever done in my life''

I hope this inspires you and tells the story of KitAid. As we always say it really  is more than just a shirt.

Dougy Allsop and his team have recently made an amazing trip to Mongolia where they took out kit, played in the national stadium and helped to build a number of things from funds they had raised. 

This all came about from an introduction they made with Adventure Kicks when we went up to Scotland last November. 

Martin Myers who runs AK attended the presentation day and it all developed from there. 

Well done guys and look forward to hearing more about it when we eventually get up to Scotland again.

Many thanks to the hardy team from Affinity Water who took part in this event and ran in KitAid branded t-shirts.  There are some good photos on twitter (@kitaid) and FB sites if you haven’t already seen them. 

Special thanks to Imran who thought the race was just 5k and it would be split between all 5 runners, only to find out on the night that he had to run the full distance himself! They were some of the very last runners to appear on the track before it was taken up and replaced.

Yet again (after six years of visiting) Derrick came away totally inspired and in awe of the fantastic work carried out by the team at BYFC.  The Footy Camp project is absolutely brilliant and the 60 kids have an awesome time.  However, as we think most of you know, the project is about so much more than this, and Peter and his team, work incredibly hard to mentor all of the boys and build lasting relationships which go way beyond the 5 days of the footy camp. 

This year Bean, who is a true larger than life character, ran the camp which allowed Peter to take more of a back seat role.  He did a fantastic job and he also works as one of the youth workers at the BYFC drop in centre full time.

As ever, we all went back to the centre afterwards and it allowed Janet, Dom, Kevin, Steve, Lesley and Robert to see the value of the BYFC work.  Peter has secured the funding for the redevelopment of the centre and work is due to start later this year. By the time we go back next year it should be looking good and it will open up a whole new world for the kids in Ballysillan to attend more activities in a much better environment.

We at KitAid are so glad we found Ballysillan YFC and as much as we try to put into words the value and brilliance of their work, we believe you have to go out and see it to really understand it.  If you get the chance you really should join us next year and we're sure all of the guys who came with us will echo this.  

Although we tend not to shout about our achievements I am keen that all of our hard work is recognised from time to time. There are not many awards that we can enter as such a small charity, and when we do, we are always up against the big well known charities who have full time staff who can produce super glossy submissions.  

Many thanks to Jo Heaton who has come to our rescue by producing a couple of great submissions for the Charity Times and Third Sector awards.  We actually won the Third Sector “small charity/big achiever” award in 2006 when we were achieving substantially less than we now are.  I will attach the Charity Times submission for info as I think it is a good read and it summarises our achievements really well.

Fingers crossed that the judges can see what we achieve on a miniscule budget entirely with volunteers and hopefully we will be short listed.  Watch this space.