Arsenal Football Club is delighted to confirm that its dedicated charity match day on 8 December v West Bromwich Albion, has raised in excess of £200,000 for The Arsenal Foundation. Supporters can still make a donation to The Arsenal Foundation by visiting www.justgiving.com/thearsenalfoundation or by texting AFCF12 plus the amount (e.g. £2) to 70070.
The fantastic final sum of £203,237.23 will help the Club’s grant-giving arm to continue supporting a range of local and international education and sport projects that aim to transform young people’s lives, including those of Arsenal in the Community and the Club’s global charity partner, Save the Children.
To announce the landmark total, Arsenal’s Spanish duo Mikel Arteta and Santi Cazorla posed in their festive woollies to mark today’s Save the Children Christmas Jumper Day. The charity will continue to benefit from the work of The Arsenal Foundation and has already been supported with donations that have seen it deliver its Eat, Sleep, Learn, Play! (ESLP!) and Families and Schools Together (FAST) programmes for the first time in Islington, as well as a large-scale project in China to help improve the education of 15,000 children attending some of Beijing’s most disadvantaged schools.
A host of fundraising initiatives took place in and around Emirates Stadium last Saturday, with the Arsenal first team squad donating a day’s wages and supporters contributing to the partnership in a number of ways. Volunteers were out in force to raise money through bucket collections and a special matchday raffle, while key supporters and beneficiaries of the Foundation also took part in a pre-match pitchside collection with Club mascot, Gunnersaurus.
Elsewhere, 50 pence from every matchday programme sold was donated to The Arsenal Foundation, while Arsenal bar scarves, as modelled by the Arsenal players, were snapped up in Club retail outlets, with £2 from each sale going towards the overall fundraising cause.
Arsenal Football Club Chief Executive Officer , Ivan Gazidis, said: “Yet again, the dedicated matchday has been a fine example of everyone connected with Arsenal Football Club coming together and showing their generosity towards the Club’s charitable and community projects. On behalf of the Club, I’d like to thank everyone that volunteered and donated to make the day such a success – the fantastic fundraising total raised will help The Arsenal Foundation continue its important work and we look forward to seeing the money support more exciting local and international projects in 2013.”
Supporters can still make a donation to The Arsenal Foundation by visiting www.justgiving.com/thearsenalfoundation or by texting AFCF12 plus the amount (e.g. £2) to 70070.