Community's most vulnerable set for Raith Rovers' Festive Friends visit

The foundation is one of 37 associated community trusts and Scottish Professional League clubs taking part in the league’s annual Festive Friends programme.

It’s now in its fifth year, but with life looking very different this holiday season, the SPFL Trust has teamed up with its partners to come up with a new at-home version of the programme.

Funding previously announced by James Anderson and the SPFL Trust’s second anonymous donor means that a total of £87,700 will be committed to this year’s campaign, enabling the initiative to more than Double the number of people clubs are able to support.

More than 2,400 people will receive a socially-distanced doorstep visit to their homes and a Christmas hamper delivered by a friendly face from their local SPFL club.

The Kirkcaldy club’s community foundation manager, Paul Greig, said: “We are over the moon to support this fantastic community initiative with the help of the Linton Lane Centre, Hosting Hope and many local partners and suppliers.

"Our aim is to provide over 200 Festive Friends hampers on December 24.

"This huge project cannot be completed without an army of volunteers which we cannot thank enough for their help at this time of year.

"We hope to spread as much festive joy and cheer as possible this Christmas, especially given the difficult year it has been for everyone.”

Trusts will receive referrals through existing programmes, external partners and public agencies, as would normally happen for Festive Friends.

Ordinarily, Festive Friends takes place at SPFL club stadia across the country as participants enjoy a Christmas lunch, fun and games and a club gift, as well as the means to get there and home.

Almost 4,000 people have enjoyed such an event over the last four years.

Social distancing measures mean that clubs are flipping the entire operation this year, though, and will instead head into their communities to make thousands of doorstep visits.