The EFL Day of Action is about all 72 EFL Clubs and their Community Trusts and Foundations uniting to promote and publicise the support and impact football can have in the local community.
Crawley Town Community Foundation hosted a full day of fun and appreciation for the community by visiting a range of the programmes, services and sessions we deliver, in what has now become our Annual Roadshow.
Crawley Town’s mascot Reggie was up early to kick off proceedings.
We had an early morning start at Thomas Bennet Community College, to meet up with our National Citizen Service (NCS) team.
NCS were hosting a Food 4 Lyf Enterprise Challenge™ for year 8 students.
The session was a bespoke enterprise task based on all things business, also incorporating the essence of social action using the story that comes with the challenge.
During the Food 4 Lyf task, each group recreates as many food packages as possible in order to feed the community of Crawley.
They are given a £40 budget and, as a team, must decide how they are going to spend their money in the NCS Shop of Resources.
The young people enjoyed meeting Reggie whilst learning some valuable skills, which included:
- Decision making
- Leadership
- Team Work
- Initiative and instinct
- Negotiation
- Creativity
- Reflection
The next stop on the Roadshow and EFL Day of Action was at Broadfield’s 3G, with Crawley Town Flyers – our open football session for people with disabilities.
Participants got an opportunity to meet and play withIbrahim Meite and Josh Doherty (see main picture).
Ibrahim and Josh joined in with the warm-up, skill session and matches.
This gave the participants the opportunity to play alongside their heroes, and perhaps learn some new skills along the way.
At the end of the session, participants were given tickets for Saturday's game against Lincoln City, which was definitely a highlight for the participants!
Our next community event was Langley Green Kicks, hosted at the Langley Green Adventure Playground.
The free Premier League Kicks programme is for young people aged 9 to 19, and provides participants the opportunity to play football whilst making new friends.
Again, the session finished off with a surprise ticket giveaway.
The next stop bought us back to The People’s Pension Stadium.
Our U12s Development Centre was in action on the Community 3G Ballcourt, and tickets for the Lincoln City game were given out to the players at the end of the session.
The final event was with Crawley Town Flyers and a team coaching session, hosted in the evening at K2 Leisure Centre.
Crawley Town coaches work alongside Outreach 3 Way coaches, training the team who plays in the Sussex FA Disability League.
Again, tickets were gifted to participants to attend Saturday's game.
Overall, it was a very successful EFL Day of Action.
We value and thank all of our partners and participants across the community who helped make this day a tremendous success.
Crawley Town believes in inclusion across all ages, because everyone matters in football.
To find out more about our sessions go to our website: https://www.ctcommunityfoundation.com/
