21 Apr A MESSAGE FROM ANN HOUGH: CHAIR OF TRUSTEES

With COVID-19 continuing to affect the nation, the Huddersfield Town Foundation is keen to ensure it does as much as possible to support the Kirklees community.

On behalf of the Foundation and its Trustees, Ann Hough has the following message for the Huddersfield Town supporters and community:

Dear Valued Supporter

I hope that this finds you and your family safe and well during these unprecedented times.

I am sure that like every other football fan, you are missing the live action and we hope that we can soon return to watching our team and hearing the roar of the crowd at the John Smith’s Stadium.

I am writing to you to highlight the work of The Huddersfield Town Foundation, the Club’s official charity. While some support is provided by the Club, like all other charities the Town Foundation relies on donations from the public as well as applying for grant funding.

In light of current circumstances, you may have noticed that on Wednesday 25 March, the Town Foundation launched our urgent fundraising appeal via our text donate lines and online Just Giving page.

To date, we have raised enough to fund almost 700 breakfasts for school pupils in and around Kirklees across our Breakfast Club initiative, or to fund over 20 COVID19 survival packs through our partner food banks at The Welcome Centre, Huddersfield and Batley Food Bank.

Further, at a time when we are all increasingly shopping online, we have also launched our ‘Give as you Live’ platform, which is a free way to fundraise for the Huddersfield Town Foundation, while shopping with a number of participating retailers such as Asda, M&S, John Lewis and Boots. To sign up for an account, just click on the link: https://www.giveasyoulive.com/

On an annual basis, it costs the Foundation £140,000 per year to fund its Breakfast Clubs and we know that when schools return, there will be an increased demand for our offer. As a result of cancelled or postponed fundraising activity, the Town Foundation is projecting an anticipated loss of income totalling over £50,000 to the end of 2020.

As such, we are asking fans to consider supporting us in our mission to keep Breakfast Clubs going, as well as our many other valued activities. Several players from the HTAFC First Team have already come forward to make donations and kick start the campaign.

We would like to sincerely thank all of you who have contributed so far, no matter how large or small.  While we will work tirelessly to ensure that our communities do not suffer as a consequence, we are naturally concerned.

We are concerned about young children going to school without any breakfast. We are concerned about families not being fed on account of parents having lost their employment and not knowing where to turn. We are concerned about our older residents who may be isolated and in need of a friend. We are concerned about the mental health of people of all ages and loss of determination to carry on when all of this is over.

It is with this in mind, that we urge you to consider making a donation to the Huddersfield Town Foundation. Working collaboratively with local partners and organisations, we will work across the breadth of Kirklees to ensure that once we are up and running again, we continue to feel like ‘One Club, One Community’.

This means delivering all of our existing programmes and initiatives to include Breakfast Clubs, Fans for Foodbanks, Premier League Kicks, Mental Health Football and Sporting Memories – all of which are free to attend.

We will need your help to do this. It couldn’t be easier to donate to the Huddersfield Town Foundation. You can do this by texting as below:

To donate £1, text HTF to 70201

To donate £3, text HTF to 70331

To donate £5, text HTF to 70970

To donate £10, text HTF to 70191

Alternatively, visit our Just Giving Page at: https://www.justgiving.com/HuddersfieldTownFoundation

The support of our local community will go a long way in helping us to sustain our programme of delivery in and around Kirklees, once we emerge from this crisis and return to some normality.  We must come together, now more than ever. We hope that we can rely on your support.

Keep safe, keep well and, for now, continue to stay inside.

Ann Hough

Chair of Trustees

Huddersfield Town Foundation