COMMUNITY

POMPEY WIN REGIONAL COMMUNITY AWARD

Portsmouth Football Club and Pompey in the Community (PitC) are proud to have won the Your Move Community Club of the Year award for the South-East & South region.

It recognises the work done by the club and its affiliated charity during the Covid enforced lockdowns over the past year. Within days of the first one being announced, food parcels and hot meals were being organised for the most vulnerable members of our community, while PitC sorted and delivered 500 food parcels a week.

The Blue Kitchen concept started when it was realised that some of the recipients did not know how to prepare any of the contents of these parcels to make nutritious hot meals. So instead, meals were prepared at the charity’s premises – located a stone’s throw from Fratton Park – with 4,000 being distributed in total, along with 6,000 food parcels.

Pompey players and staff joined volunteers from PitC in every aspect of the process, from sorting donations to helping with the cooking and delivering to grateful members of the public.

The idea then stared to evolve, with Zoom cooking classes helping to promote healthy lifestyles and provide education, all at a time when face-to-face contact was restricted. These classes featured Ben Close, Callum Johnson, Mark Catlin and Kev the Kitman, and were broadcast on the club’s social media channels. And the Blue Kitchen project has since held Cancer Recovery and Into Work courses, respectively helping people recover from serious illness and learn new skills in order to gain employment. Easter holiday sessions also proved extremely popular, with children learning to cook simple recipes and trying new foods.

At the recent EFL Awards ceremony, which was broadcast live on Sky Sports, Pompey were pitted against the other regional winners – Blackburn (North West), Bristol Rovers (South West & Wales), Port Vale (Midlands), Sunderland (North East & Yorkshire) and Watford (London) – with Port Vale claiming the overall prize.

Clare Martin, PitC’s CEO, said: “Our response to the Covid pandemic has been a huge team effort and out of that adversity, we have created the Blue Kitchen project, which will be part of our community delivery moving forward.

“Learning how to cook a nutritious hot meal for yourself is a basic skill, which so many people are not given the opportunity to learn, and we aim to educate the people of Portsmouth, so that our population is healthier in the coming years. Winning this award is a fitting accolade for everyone who helped make it possible.”

If you would like to know more about Blue Kitchen and what current courses are available, please contact Gavin Randall on (023) 9272 8899 or email gavin.randall@pompeyitc.org.uk