Herts FA

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.

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Ellen White – Arsenal and England Ladies

Thanks to Helen for contacting Ellen White and for getting her interested in KitAid.

As a result she donated a mountain of her own England and Arsenal training kit and has expressed an interest in coming along to a boxing up session soon.

We held an official presentation at a St Albans City match in early Jan, when Ellens’s kit, some from Birmingham City Ladies, as well as St Albans, was handed over on a freezing half time pitch presentation.

Helen took some of the kit with her out to the Gambia and I have given some to Clare Muir for her trip to Kenya this month, so we should soon be able to show Ellen where her kit has ended up.

I have been trying to get Arsenal Ladies involved for a while now, as they are based at the local University of Herts and I think it is good for KitAid to help promote football for girls in Africa.

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Barry Lenton & BBC Radio Merseyside

Barry has launched part 2 of his Merseywide/Marine FC collection and he is trying to reach 10,000 shirts collected by the end of the season.

He has recently passed the 7k milestone, which is amazing.

He has got support from BBC Radio Merseyside which helps, not only with the shirt appeal but in terms of publicising KitAid.

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Totals for 2012

In 2012 we sorted, packed and donated 775 boxes of kit which amounts to an amazing 26,775 items.

Across the world we have kitted out the equivalent of 1,785 teams, which is amazing, but even better, we have brought 26,775 smiles and a feeling of hope/pleasure to this many people.

This convinces me it is really worthwhile and together we do make a difference.

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Marine AFC Collection

Barry Lenton did fantastically well in 2012 by collecting 6,600 items of kit and he is re-launching the appeal in Jan with the target of reaching 10,000 items.

He has persuaded BBC Radio Merseyside to support him again so fingers crossed it will be another success. Well done Barry/Marine FC.

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Chesham Utd v Barrow FC – FA Trophy 2nd Round – 15 Dec

A great draw as it brings 2 clubs who have supported KA together. I have sponsored the match ball in KA’s name and David Ingham (RC for Cumbria) is a mad Barrow supporter and will be travelling down. David doesn’t really get the chance to get to many of our events so it will be a nice way of meeting up to share KA news. May the best team win, as long as it is Chesham!!

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Great feedback

We had a great story published on the Evo-stik website last week and a similar story published in yesterday’s Non League Paper, see http://evostikleague.pitchero.com/royals-answer-charity-call-11298/

What I really like about this is how it shows how effective the KitAid model is. It started with a request for help from the secretary of Sutton Coldfield FC, we then passed it on to Football Gambia, they checked the guys out to make sure the kit request was relevant and they donated some kit we had sent over. Quite amazing how we can make this happen from just a couple of emails. I think we have impressed SCFC as they are now going to arrange a bigger kit collection, and Helen is on the doorstep, so even better!

We have also had a couple of great responses in from kit donations and I really love it when we get feedback such as the following

"Almost all the 140 children in our school will have a football jersey from KitAid. We have become a football powerhouse in the Junior categories in the district as a result of your support. We should maybe change our name to KitAid Academy Uganda. The children love their shirts like the QUEEN loves England"
Paul Natuhumuriza – Uganda

"Your continued support has delivered our boys from being in elicit activities such as drugs and alcohol in our community. Some of our players have never used boots in their lives. It is our desire that your continued support shall help some of our boys to play in their dream clubs in Europe."
Mr Kashimoto – Ex Zambian football international.

This is what makes all of our efforts so worthwhile, and what a lovely end to this monthly update.

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