September was another busy month with some big kit donations. Here are the latest figures
Items of kit donated in September – 16,005
Items donated so far in 2021 – 84,730
Items donated since 1998 – 791, 354
Kit donated in September to Malawi, Nigeria, Zimbabwe,Swaziland, Zambia, Gambia, and Ethiopia.
William Hill campaign
The Nationwide shop collection took place for a fortnight this month and we are very grateful to the organising team from WH for making this happen. Special thanks to Sharon and Alex from Liverpool for getting the project off the ground and to Steph from Leeds for managing the project. All of the kit is being collected from 25 regional centres next week and it will then be delivered to the containers in Hemel Hempstead next Friday(8th). It will be fascinating to see how much has been donated. The amount will have been affected by the BBC “Kit Out the Nation” campaign and for the next WH collection in November/December, we won’t have this to contend with. Look out for updates on our social media sites next Friday.
Boxing Up – Hatfield
After a very long 18 months, we have been given the green light by Affinity Water to hold a “mini” session on 23 October. This is really good news and it will be fantastic to have a proper sorting session together. We have agreed to limit the numbers for this session and for those of you who are still to reply to the email invite, there are a few places still to fill.
Even though we have managed to send out 84k items of kit so far this year, it hasn’t been the same and our sorting sessions are more than just a 3 hour sprint. We have missed the camaraderie, friendship and Sean’s eclectic mega mix of Vera Lynn to the Sex Pisols booming out across the room! And the Danish pastries!
Once we meet the new requirements at this session we should be able to increase the numbers again and soon be up to full speed.
We know that Everton Heritage Society has started to collect kit again for us before home games, so hopefully we will soon be looking at holding another boxing up at St Luke’s, Goodison.
I never realised how much I look at Twitter until they very annoyingly blocked our site a couple of weeks ago!
It took me four days of emails, providing a copy of my birth certificate, passport and two emails to the UK CEO, to get them to believe that KitAid was not an 11 year old child when we created the account in 2009!! All because I had to enter a date of birth to be able to follow the William Hill site and I entered the date KitAid was founded rather than my own dob. You have to be 13 years old when creating a site and the robot calculated that we were 11 in 2009! I then spent four days talking to robots in California!!
I know not everyone uses Twitter but if you do, please join the other 3,057 followers we have. Just this week, a film clip of some guys warming up in a Reading FC kit was seen by 73,474 different people. This is massive exposure and it certainly helps to get the KitAid name out there.
KitAid FC
A very big congratulations to both of our teams in Malawi. After the first round of League games both teams are top and remain unbeaten. The U14 boys have won every game and have a positive goal difference of 18 and the U17 team has won 5 and drawn 3.
Zanil from the U17 team will soon be heading off for his first games with the National U17 team, which is a massive achievement and Mary has just arranged for him to get his first ever passport. He is still only 15 and he gives all of the FOMO kids something to aspire to.
Also we must say well done to the coaches, especially Noel and Gift, who have supported the boys since the very first KitAid FC team was formed.
KitAid Calendar 2022
Many of you will have turned the page today on the 2021 KitAid calendar thanks to Jo pulling this together last year.
The big question now is, should we do another one for 2022? We have plenty of wonderful photos and Jo is happy to put the time in again. Before we commit to the time, would you mind replying to say if you would buy one again. Please reply simply with a YES or NO to 2022 calendar.
Sorry I don’t know how to add voting buttons and this may prove how many people read the monthly updates!!!!!!!!
London Marathon
Our long term supporter Jeremy (Rance) is running 26 miles on Sunday and raising funds for a charity that is close to his heart, after a friend was seriously injured in a skiing accident. I am sure Jeremy won’t mind me saying he is just shy of a milestone birthday and he has had to train for two years due to Covid halting the event last year.
If you are able to sponsor him, here is a link to his Virgin Money Giving page
https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROFundraiserPage?pageId=1142556#
As ever, we would like to thank all of our supporters, especially all of the Regional Co-ordinators across the country who do so much in the background to collect kit and to promote KitAid. The number of RC’s is steadily growing and we now have 32, with Chris from Mansfield and Barrie from Chelmsford recently coming on board. We are very grateful to all of you. To end on a positive note, I think the following quote received from a recent donation to a project in Liberia really sums up why we all do what we do.
Destiny said – “Thank you to Kit Aid for sending this equipment – it helps us to achieve in football and we help each other to achieve in education – it is important because education brings opportunity to become successful. Football talent alone is not enough. We are very happy you thought of us so we can play as a team and have fun, make friends and encourage each other in school and in our favourite sport. Thank you for your kindness”
Thanks and best wishes.