College and Club work together to support Club charity of the year
Luton Town Football Club today officially launched the season-long partnership with Friends of CHUMS with an event held in the Eric Morecambe lounge at Kenilworth Road.As part of the event, Barnfield College also announced that to help support the partnership, their logo which appears on the front of the Hatters shirt will be replaced by the CHUMS logo for the match against Cambridge at home on January 16th 2016. This will be the first time in the Club's history that a sponsor has made such a gesture - a move that will help significantly raise the profile of the charity.
Joining Luton Town Chief Operation Manager Kevan Platt were Dawn Hewitt - Chief Executive of CHUMS, Ben Banks - Trustee of CHUMS and Tim Eyton-Jones - Principal and CEO of Barnfield College. The launch was also attended by many young people who are supported by the locally-based charity as well as the Hatters first team manager John Still, assistant manager Terry Harris and players Mark Tyler and Cameron McGeehan.
Friends of CHUMS was names as the Club's official charity partner last month after a staff vote, and Dawn Hewitt took the opportunity today to thank the Club for their support.
"We'd like to extend our sincere thanks to Luton Town Football Club for this opportunity, which will do so much to help the young people we support. We are an independent Charity, which has grown by 600% since we seperated from the NHS four years ago. We now offer 10 clinical services across Luton and Bedfordshire. We receive 2,500 referrals each year, but here are so many more young people who need to use our services as one in ten children live with diagnosable mental health issues, which equates to 3 children in every classroom."
Tim Eyton-Jones, Principal and Chief Executive said "We really do appreciate the fantastic work that CHUMS do. All three organisation have the best interests of young people in Luton at heart, so it made perfect sense for us to offer CHUMS this opportunity".
Ben Banks, trustee at CHUMS described his personal pride in the their involvement. "As a fan of the Club and also, a service user of CHUMS, I suppose it's quite emotional for me to see these two organisations come together on a Luton shirt. CHUMS are not in a position to sponsor a football shirt on our own. Firstly because we don't have the money, but secondly our mantra is that all of the money we raise goes towards front-line services to support the children and those that need them. It's a truly innovative idea, and an incredible gesture from Barnfield so we'd like to congratulate them for their vision and thank them for this opportunity."
Players will be wearing friends of CHUMS shirts for our match with Cambridge. These special match-worn shirts will then be auctioned along with other memorabilia from the day to help raise money for CHUMS.
For more information about the partnership contact Ed Smith, Marketing and Communication Manager
Find out more about or partnership with CHUMS on our website: www.lutontown.co.uk/club/charities/CHUMS.aspx