Fifers feel the benefit of having Festive Friends

The volunteers get set to depart Bayview with their festive packages

The SPFL Trust has revealed that community trusts and associated SPFL clubs delivered over 2800 Christmas gift boxes to people in Scotland who were at risk of social isolation and loneliness as part of the Festive Friends at Home 2020 campaign.

Of those 40 were handed out by East Fife with 24 volunteers all giving their time to help.

In doing so they helped create the biggest ever Festive Friends Christmas programme, with more clubs, more people engaged, more volunteers, more partners and more funding than ever before.

Festive Friends has been running for five years but usually community trusts and associated SPFL clubs (ATCs) host a three-course Christmas lunch with entertainment for people in the community at their home stadium. Due to Covid-19 it wasn’t possible to follow that format, so the SPFL Trust teamed up with a record 37 ATCs to launch a new ‘at home’ version of the programme in 2020.

This new-look initiative saw clubs bring festive cheer and companionship to people’s doorsteps with deliveries of Christmas gift boxes containing food, snacks, essential toiletries, gifts, games and more. Some clubs brought video messages from managers and players; others had players make personal deliveries.

This year's programme was generously funded by James Anderson and the SPFL Trust’s second anonymous donor, who between them provided £87,700. Importantly, community trusts and SPFL clubs were able to leverage additional funding through local partners and in total, an additional £12,190 was raised.