Refilwe 2015

Refilwe would like to say a huge thank you to Kitaid for donating football kit to their football team. Refilwe is a community development initiative based in Lanseria, Johannesburg. Refilwe's mission is to help children and adults to become sustainable: spiritually, mentally and physically, and to break the cycle of poverty in all these areas so that they can develop into contributing members of their community and society. Founded in 1991, initially as a health care clinic, Refilwe have since developed a strong focus on child care, community development and skills upliftment through education and mentorship. All individuals at Refilwe are encouraged to improve themselves, ensuring a better future for themselves and their families.

Refilwe is next to an informal settlement called Joe Slovo and in the past couple of years the relationship between Refilwe and Joe Slovo has strengthened considerably. Refilwe employs people from Joe Slovo, they provide after care and holiday tutoring programs for the children, every Saturday the children come to Kids Club and are given a hot lunch, there is a skills upliftment program in horticulture, sewing, catering and carpentry and Refilwe encourage a hand up rather than a hand out through a recycling exchange project.

 

The relationship has been strengthened through the Refilwe football team combining with the Joe Slovo football team that now trains weekly and takes part in local Sunday league. The kit that Kitaid provided replaces a kit that is old and mostly lost. Calday Grange Grammar School visits Refilwe every year and has done for ten years with a group of sixth formers and a major part of the visit is the annual Refilwe vs Calday football match. Calday won the match every year from 2010 to 2014. The Refilwe/Joe Slovo team had no idea we were bringing them a new kit and were incredibly excited and grateful to receive it. The coach Etu, pictured with the old Refilwe FC shirt, has learnt from previous experience and will keep the kit himself and at every training session or match will hand it out and get it back at the end in order to make it last longer and keep it in good condition.

Refilwe/Joe Slovo FC played the 2015 match in their new kit and having trained long and hard for a match they get very excited about, even creating a new trophy for the occasion, won the match convincingly with a score of 3:1.

Both Calday and Refilwe would like to thank Kitaid for their support and the donation of the kit. The whole team was extremely happy to have received such a generous donation and will enjoy the kit for a long time to come.

 

 

 

The KitAid annual review 2014/15

The KitAid annual review 2014/2015 is now here, check out all the great stuff we have been doing over the past 12 months.

Click on the following link to access the review.

http://kitaid.net/reports-resources/annual-reviews 

Marathon Premiership drive

Good luck to Ashley and Rob who will be attempting to visit all 20 current Premier league grounds in 24 hours this weekend.  They will be setting off from the Liberty stadium in Swansea on Saturday at 6pm and will be finishing at Leicester City on Sunday at 6pm.  They will then be driving down to Vicarage Road in Watford for a welcome by the KitAid team at 7:30pm. 

If they don't meet the target they will be having their legs shaved.  So far they have raised over £1000 which will be ring fenced towards KitAid projects in Lesotho and Malawi.

 

Malawi Hospital

We recently received a request from Simon Graham, a registrar at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, for some kit.  We spoke and met up with Simon and became inspired by his work and the fact that he wanted shirts to take out to a hospital in Malawi to give to the children once they had undergone surgery. 

Our slogan of “It’s more than just a shirt” could not be closer to the truth and Simon has sent through some great photos of the children recuperating in their new Liverpool/Everton shirts.

A truly inspiring story, well done and thank you Simon

 

BBC Three Counties Radio

Derrick Williams was recently on BBC Three Counties Radio promoting the brilliant work KitAid do, a massive thank you to Nesta McGregor for having Derrick on the show!

 

If you would like to listen to the interview please see the link below.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02l8045#auto

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Derrick Williams met Derrick Williams

Derrick Williams attended Ashton gate recently to take in the Bristol City v Fleetwood Town game.  The reason behind Derrick's visit was the brilliant work Bristol Sport had done in collecting 600 plus shirts since the start of the season.

A presentation was made to Derrick by his very own namesake Bristol City defender Derrick Williams.  It's great to be involved with a new club and everyone at KitAid wishes Bristol City all the best with the rest of the season and there push for promotion to the Championship.

Merry Christmas

2014 was another record breaking year as we packed 1,201 boxes and sent out 42,035 items of kit

We passed the quarter of a million milestone and have now sent out 262,035 items of kit since 1998

We made 4 small grants of £1,000 each for project work in Uganda and Lesotho

We sponsored the fantastic Ballysillan (Belfast) footy camp project once again.

We partnered with Airdrieonians Supporters Club Trust for a novel project which collected 4k items of kit.

We continued to receive kit from Barry Lenton at Marine FC who has now collected 11k+ items.

We strengthened our charity partnerships with Hertfordshire FA, Evo-stik Northern Premier league and the Spartan South Midland League

We continued to receive support from University of Herts and Middlesex University.

We received kit from many professional, semi professional and grass roots teams from all over the UK.

We increased the number of Ambassador Clubs to 7 (adding Stegota FC and Airdrieonians FC) and set up a new club twinning partnership.

We would like to thank our Patron, Graham Taylor OBE and all of our volunteers who have helped to make 2014 another record breaking year.

“There’s only one Graham Taylor”

Derrick Williams, was honoured to represent KitAid as a guest of Graham Taylor at Vicarage Road, on Saturday.

Watford FC made the decision to name one of the stands after Graham in recognition of the fantastic achievements during his reign as both manager and Chairman.  This was greeted by a massive chorus from all four stands of “there’s only one Graham Taylor” when he stepped on to the pitch surrounded by former players to officially rename the stand.

Derrick said he felt honoured and proud to see the Patron of KitAid receive the recognition from the club and the fans.  We are very fortunate to have Graham as our Patron and he is a true gentleman and a legend.

 

 

 

250'000 Celebration

At KitAid's most recent boxing up session we hit an unbelievable milestone of 250'000 items of kit sent around the world.  In order to celebrate this amazing achievement we filmed what a typical boxing up session looks like and a few words from charities and volunteers that make KitAid such a success. 

Please see the link below to access this video.

http://youtu.be/R7EHMAvjPyw

Record Breaking Boxing Up

Saturday 15 November 2014 will be remembered by KitAid for many years to come as it was the official boxing up session where we passed the major milestone of donating 250,000 items of kit since 1998. 

The boxing up team stopped to recognise this amazing figure with a specially made footy shirt cake and the session was also filmed for a You Tube story board. On the day we also sent out a new record of 142 boxes of kit and this has bought the total number of boxes for 2014 to a new record figure of 1,048.  The previous highest figure for a single year was 963 in 2010 and we still have a month to go!

Many thanks to everyone who supports us at boxing up sessions and to those who donate kit, we couldn’t do it without you.

 

Airdrieonians FC

KitAid would like to say a massive thank you to the club and the Supporters Trust for the fantastic achievement of collecting 4,000 items of kit as part of their brilliant season ticket campaign.

On Saturday 8 November a group of KitAid Trustees and supporters visited the club for their 6 pointer game against Stenhousemuir.  Derrick Williams gave a thank you speech to a packed audience and was able to present certificates to a number of the people who had played a leading role in the kit collection. Special thanks were given to Dougy Allsop who spearheaded the whole campaign and rallied the club and the town to get behind it so well.

Also on the day, Airdrieonians FC were officially recognised as the 7^th KitAid Ambassador Club to recognise their fantastic support.  We look forward to a long partnership with the club and their supporters.

 

 

Bright Stars Girls Soccer Academy

At KitAid we love to see where donated kit ends up, we recently received photos of the Bright Stars Girls Soccer Academy in Harare, Zimbabwe.  Please see photos below of the team before an important match wearing kit donated by Arsenal ladies.  They're a very successful team and have won their league the past 3 seasons, we wish them all the best for their forthcoming fixtures.

FC United Of Manchester kit collection

Thank you to FC United of Manchester and their fans for their great support on Saturday.  We collected a van load of kit, including donations from Grantham Town and Stalybridge Celtic.  Many thanks to the fans and players who donated so much kit which will soon be on its way to Africa.

Good luck for the rest of the season and many congratulations on your new home in Moston which we look forward to visiting next season.

 

 

  

 

Airdrieonians FC

Congratulations to the AFC supporters trust for collecting an amazing 4000 items of kit.  We really appreciate such a large amount of kit collected within such a short space of time and we look forward to coming up and meeting everyone on the 8th November.  Please see the photos below for all the kit collected.

FC United Of Manchester

Many thanks to FC United Of Manchester for holding a kit amnesty day for us.  We look forward to attending the game on September 20th at Stalybridge Celtic.  Good luck for the rest of the season and we hope you gain promotion.

Nyumanzi camp, North Uganda

Recently we received a kind donation from one of the biggest clubs in the world Manchester United.  The red kit of United is recognised no matter where you are in the world and the recipients of this kit was the Nyumanzi Camp in North Uganda.

Please watch the short video below to see how this kit was greatly received.

http://youtu.be/83mew6G3HH0

Sir Tom Finney memorial shirts

We were very honoured to be chosen by Preston North End and Sir Tom’s family to receive all of the shirts which were left at Deepdale in his memory. The club arranged for all of the shirts to be laundered and they are due to be collected soon, in time for our next sorting and boxing session on 27 September.  It is a fitting tribute that Sir Tom’s shirts will bring joy to so many people who love the beautiful game.  

From Carrington to Northern Uganda

We were very fortunate to receive a donation of fantastic training kit from Manchester United recently from their training complex at Carrignton.  Some of the kit has now found its way to a massive refugee camp in Northern Uganda which houses 100,000 displaced people who have fled South Sudan.

The kit was taken out for us by the Watford based charity, Eagles Wings and it was delivered by their founder, Bruce Oliver.  He explained that many of the people have no possessions and there is nothing to do for the thousands of young people.  The kits are now being used as part of a football project where teams wear it in inter zone matches and play tournaments.

 

As we say, it really is more than just a shirt as it brings hope where little exists.  Thanks to the kit managers at Carrington who kindly sorted and helped get it to us.

 

 

Watford FC Open Day

We had a great time at the WFC Open Day and really appreciate the support from the club.  We received a lot of shirts on the day, mainly Hornets ones, as well as some great training kit from the club.  We also met a lot of fans and explained how we work and who we are.  A lot already knew of us which is encouraging and the retweets by the club certainly helped with this.

Many thanks to all of the fans who donated shirts and to Alex Ashby who is one of the main organisers.  Good luck for the new season, COYH.

 

 

KitAid Annual Review

The KitAid annual review 2013/2014 is now here, check out all the great stuff we have been doing over the past 12 months.

Click on the following link to access the review.

http://kitaid.net/images/kitaid-annual-review-2014-%20web.pdf