This week has been filled with even more positivity.
First of all, our Christmas Fundraising Campaign, to raise money to provide a gift for children that would potentially not receive a present on Christmas morning has been a resounding success.
On top of many donations of selection boxes, other treats, boxes and customised wrapping paper, we have also had 1000 books for children donated and in just over a week we have raised an amazing £36,446 from our community, local businesses, fans and our first team players and staff.
This has been an unbelievable effort by everyone and is a true indication of what can be achieved when we all come together, for a greater cause.
This week we have been busy sourcing gifts and the Community Trust team have been wrapping and putting the treat boxes together. We also had our First team players helping on Thursday.
This whole campaign is a prime example of why I am so proud to be part of Blackpool. Thank you to everyone that has supported.
This week we have also completed delivery of our Autumn NCS programme and have reached an amazing 471 young people from September to December.
The young people engaged in a very different format to the usual residential based programme, which included personal development sessions delivered locally or on zoom, over a week and then the young people took part in 30 hours of social action projects.
We have worked very closely with our own BFC Sports College students, Blackpool and Fylde College and Park Community Academy.
Our figure is the highest by any club in the country over this period.
Out of 28 clubs delivering, the second highest figure engaged was Blackburn Rovers, who worked with 249, so not only were we the highest, we achieved that mantel by a considerable margin. Another provider of NCS in Blackpool worked with 8 young people in Autumn, so again it shows the impact BFC can have in engaging young people into positive activity.
Our NCS team have worked tirelessly to find a positive way to still deliver in this current Covid world and they have done an amazing job, which we are really proud of and shows again the fantastic impact we are having on our community.
We are now delivering an NCS college support element of the programme and working with a further 400 young people from Blackpool and Fylde College on British Values and every secondary school in March, with year 11 pupils, on exam preparation.
Monday 7th December also saw the one year anniversary since we officially opened our Education and Community Centre, at Bloomfield Road.
The impact this facility has had on our provision and allowed us to run the food and isolation hub during lockdown has been enormous on the Community Trust and our local community.
It has given our Sports College a home to deliver the fantastic education in a safe environment and allowed us to extend our support to local children, during evenings with PL Kicks Clubs and Youth Work sessions, as part of our Tower Above programme.
A huge amount of gratitude must be shown again to the Football Foundation and Blackpool Football Club in supporting us on this development, which we still hope is only part one of a four phase plan I have for the area and our facility developments. Hopefully I can share more information very soon.