Over £16,000 raised for Club charity of the year
Ahead of the launch of our new charity of the year partnership with Level Trust, now seems like a good time to look back at our season long partnership with the outgoing charity of the year CHUMS.
CHUMS were originally tied with Level Trust to become the Club charity of the year, so it was agreed that they would defer their tenure until the forthcoming 2016-17 season. The official launch of the partnership came last October, when, at a presentation in the Eric Morecambe Lounge, Barnfield college announced that their shirt sponsorship would be surrendered for the Hatters match with Cambridge. This was to allow the CHUMS logo to appear on the front of the Luton Town shirts, an initiative which would go on to help awareness of the charity as well as raising a huge sum thanks to a shirt auction. The ground collection on the day also raised over £1,200 thanks to the generosity of supporters.
And that was just the beginning. Staff and supporters of the Hatters embraced the cause and went on to participate in a number of fund and awareness raising initiatives throughout the season.
Dawn Hewitt, chief executive of CHUMS, said: "CHUMS has had an incredible year of support as Luton Town Football Club’s first chosen Club Charity of the Year. We forged a very enjoyable partnership which went from strength to strength involving LTFC staff, fans and players. Luton Town really got behind the charity and with limited resources at both ends we were able to make a significant impact on community awareness of the mental health and emotional wellbeing services that we offer to local children and young people.
"The game on 16th January vs Cambridge United was kindly branded for CHUMS with Barnfield College making a very generous gesture of donating the shirt sponsorship to CHUMS for the day. This was a first for Luton Town and the CHUMS logo blended brilliantly with the orange match day shirts. These one off players shirts was subsequently auctioned, raising a massive £3,749 for CHUMS.
"Three members of Luton Town staff Ranga, Siobhan and Sian offered to join CHUMS on their inaugural skydive event jumping from above Hinton Airfield. It was a brilliant day for everyone and the 3 of them raised a staggering £7,158.60 – more than doubling their fundraising target.
"The end of season dinner was an opportunity to thank everyone for coming on board in so many different ways to support CHUMS across fundraising, awareness raising, working in partnership on some of our football programmes and giving many of our service users their first taste of attending a football game. Funds raised over the entire year were £16,257.29.
"We will never forget the wonderful opportunity we have had and it has been a privilege and an honour to have been the first LTFC Club Charity of the Year.", she concluded.
Senior Operations Manager, Kevan Platt said: "It's been an incredibly rewarding experience teaming up with CHUMS as our first ever official charity partner. We would like to extend our thanks to Dawn and her team for entering into the partnership so wholeheartedly, and also to the supporters and staff who have been so generous this year in helping us smash the Club's initial target of £10,000.
"Even though this is the end of the official partnership, we're looking forward to working with CHUMS at some point in the future, and we wish them well with their vitally important work", he added.