05 Jun STUDENTS TURN OUT-OF-FAVOUR FOOTBALL SHIRTS INTO REUSABLE BAGS FOR INSPIRES CHALLENGE

A group of students at Colne Valley High School are repurposing out-of-favour football shirts by turning them into reusable tote bags that can be sold to raise money for charity.

The Foundation delivers Premier League Inspires in Colne Valley every Tuesday and Friday. Premier League Inspires is a positive mental health and resilience programme and the primary focus of helping young people reach their potential by ensuring they’re engaged and inspired by developing the coping strategies to support them through the challenges of life.

This year, they have entered the PL Inspires Challenge, which tasks young people with devising and delivering social-action projects in their local communities.

The students have had the idea to turn old football shirts that do not get worn anymore into reusable tote bags. They will make these by hand before selling them on to raise money for a local charity.

We would like to thank people for the donation of some of their shirts, with a further appreciation to the Club and Umbro for their generous donation of some of this year’s shirts to help the team out. Huddersfield Town’s head of retail Luke Cowan visited the group and gave an insight into his role, how the retail department is run, and shirts are designed and chosen.

Secondary Schools Education Manager Jim Dyson has been impressed with what he has seen from the group that he has worked closely with.

He said: “The Inspires challenge runs every year and it is based on getting young people to create their own social-action projects and present that to a panel where the best ones will be selected to put their plan into action against other Foundations.

“The lads themselves were shown what previous groups have done in previous years and they wanted to do something around football shirts, and they decided to turn those shirts into tote bags that could be sold to raise money for a local charity which will be a cancer charity.

“They have adapted to the challenge really well and they look forward to the sessions – we have had a few setbacks but that’s all part of the process. They have been pushed out of their comfort zones and once they were given that little bit of a push, they have really taken to it.

“For them to come up with all of this themselves is really impressive and to tackle three issues at once in clothing waste due to people constantly buying clothes and them taking them to landfill or just staying in cupboards, plastic pollution by replacing the plastic bags, and in raising money for a charity that they care about.

“It is really good to see the young people pick three big issues that the UK faces and try to tackle them.

“I’d like to thank the staff at Colne Valley who have been really supportive, and we look forward to presenting our ideas in Middlesbrough.”

If you would like more information on the delivery of PL Inspires or to donate a shirt for the project, please email help@htafcfoundation.com with your enquiry.