Over the past few weeks and concluding yesterday, Bloomfield Bear has been making some visits to schools and a Children in Need fundraising event we held, all to coincide with Children in Need Day, Friday November 19th 2021.
A few weeks ago Bloomfield Bear went to the Woodlands v Park football match. A match we were able to coordinate due to the work we do delivering physical activity sessions in both schools.
On social media Woodlands Westbury said, “Thank you to Blackpool FC Community Trust for the continued support they provide to both schools throughout the school year, we really appreciate it! We can’t wait for the next match!”
Bloomfield Bear also supported a Children in Need fundraising event in our Education and Community Centre prior to the Blackpool FC v QPR game. In addition to the weekly sessions, we were able to invite some of the children we work with to attend the Children in Need fundraising event at the stadium. They helped volunteer at the event, which they all loved doing, and were also offered a free ticket on the day to see the Blackpool v QPR game.
Finally, this week, he finished off by visiting Park Community Academy and went in net for a fun-filled penalty shoot-out.
The children we work with, through the Children in Need funding, have had a great time meeting Bloomfield Bear!
“It was absolutely brilliant. The kids loved seeing the Bear. We all had lots of fun”, said Mr Moseley, one of the teachers we work alongside with at Park on the after-school club.
“He was funny” Abi, a pupil at Park, said.
After a race with Bloomfield Bear Logan, a school pupil was really excited and said, “I’m faster than him”
“He got out the goal and everyone got a goal and he was funny” Shania said, speaking about the penalty shoot-out pupils had against Bloomfield where he was dancing around the goal, lying down on the floor and generally being cheeky.
Thanks to funding from BBC Children in Need, we had a target to deliver to over 300 pupils, which we have now gone beyond. Our aims have been to ‘Reduce feelings of marginalisation and exclusion’, ‘Increase in physical activity’ and ‘Empower young people to try new things’.
As we come into our final year of this funding, up to now, we have delivered 556 sessions with over 4600 contact hours for the Children in Need funded sessions. As it is our final year, a focus of our work is around encouraging the pupils we work with to attend our community based physical activity sessions, which some of them currently attend.
