We received funding from Awards for All, Big Lottery Fund and Freshgate Trust to expand our Football for Food campaign, raising awareness of the extent and causes of food poverty – tackling misrepresentations and myths – which includes static incomes, rising living costs, low pay, underemployment and problems with welfare whilst collecting more food to distribute via Sheffield Food Collective to local food banks.
The events part of this extended campaign included:
*Kick-Ups in Town: 19th of June 2016, Devonshire Green, 10am-6pm – at this event we ran a pop-up stall at Devonshire Green where we had donation buckets/containers to encourage donations of food for food banks we are working with via Sheffield Food Collective, with a stall with information about the campaign (via leaflets), whilst players from our 11-a-side teams handed out fliers to members of the public and also attracted people by kicking the ball about and doing tricks and skills where possible. Players were sponsored to take part in the event by food. Through this event, we collected 133 items of food, working out at around 49 kilograms of food. The event was also covered on Sheffield Live.
*Pop-Up Quiz: 8th of July 2016, Union Street, 18-20 Union St, Sheffield S1 2JR, 6-9pm – at this event we organised a Football for Food general knowledge women’s focussed pop-up quiz where people entered to take part by bringing food to donate at the event. We also included questions regarding food poverty within the quiz to raise awareness of the issues and the reasons for why we are running the campaign. Through this event we collected 70 items of food, working out at around 28 kilograms of food.
“Shocked at how much food poverty there is in our city” – feedback from someone who attended our Pop-Up Quiz event
*Football for Food 5-a-side Tournament: 16th of July 2016, 12-4pm, The U-Mix Centre, 17 Asline Rd, Sheffield S2 4UJ – AFC Unity, AFC Unity Jets, Yorkshire St Pauli, Mount Pleasant Park FC, Roundabout Utd, Clapton Ultras, Small Ideas FC, Easton Cowgirls and Mexborough Athletic all entered to take part in this tournament by donating food rather than paying to enter with spectators encouraged to bring food to donate as well. We also had the following speakers talking at the tournament:
*Gill Furniss, Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside & Hillsborough
*Carrie Dunn, a journalist, writing about sport – primarily women’s sport – and has covered events from World Cups to the Ashes to the Olympics
*Nick Waterfield, works in and around Parson Cross in North Sheffield for the Methodist Church and is the Chair of Sheffield Church Action on Poverty
*Debbie Matthews, CEO of Manor and Castle Development Trust for 11 years and one of the founder members of the S2 Food Bank
*Steve Clark, volunteer with the Sunday Centre – a project open every Sunday afternoon for homeless and other vulnerable people – for about 12 years and is their current Chair
At this event we collected 915 items of food, working out at around 355 kilograms of food alongside a £50.00 donation for the food banks. This is more than we collected in 11 events previous to this point (excluding the Sponsored Kick-ups and Pop-Up Quiz events!).
“The link between football, socially minded football teams and social justice / food projects is potentially very powerful” – feedback from someone who attended our 5-a-side Football for Food tournament.
We also premièred 3 videos we have had made by local filmmaker Claire Watkinson for the campaign.
*11-a-side players volunteering at The Sunday Centre, 24th of July 2016 – The Sunday Centre provides a friendly shelter for homeless, isolated and vulnerable people where they can obtain refreshments and a cooked meal in the city centre on a Sunday afternoon. We volunteered to help with the serving of drinks and food to guests and chat.
In total, through the expansion we collected 1118 items of food working out to be around 432 kilograms of food!
Campaign Videos
As part of the Football for Food Campaign Expansion we had 3 videos made by local filmmaker Claire Watkinson – these videos were shown for the first time at our Football for Food 5-a-side tournament. The three films were:
1) Did You Know? Key Facts on Food Poverty:
In this video, players and personnel from AFC Unity deliver key facts regarding food poverty to the camera, with the aim of friends and family sharing this around their social media networks helping raise awareness regarding the issues. This was a key part of our campaign, as we didn’t want to only collect food donations without raising awareness of why this is happening and needed. Moving forward, we wish to challenge the growing normalisation of food bank use as this is not part of creating a long-term fair and equal society.
“I didn’t quite realise the scale of the problem, with 4 million in food poverty” – feedback from someone who attended our Pop-Up Quiz event.
2) Food Bank Case Study:
A food bank we distribute collected food to was visited – this food bank is based in Parson Cross at Mount Tabor Church. Parson Cross Initiative Share Food Bank have utilised this video to promote the work they do too.
3) We Are AFC Unity:
This video helped us as a club promote what we do, creating more awareness regarding our Football for Food campaign, highlighting how the club is an agent for social change rather than just being a football club.
Campaign Statistics
As part of the campaign, we also produced a page on our website where we added and will keep adding statistics on food poverty and the causes and reasons for this providing people with further reading and sources/evidence for the claims we have shared during the campaign (such as through our Did You Know? Key Facts on Food Poverty video).
Awards Ceremony and Launch of Expansion of Football for Food
We launched our Football for Food campaign expansion at our End of Season (2015/2016) Awards Ceremony, where we also collected around 12kg of food and 31 items. Nick Waterfield from Parson Cross food bank attended the event and talked about the importance of the campaign.
“Very surprised by the number of children in poverty in Sheffield” – feedback from someone who attended our Pop-Up Quiz event.
Football for Food 5-a-side Tournament
The Football for Food 5-a-side Tournament was the biggest event as part of the expansion campaign. We do want to build on this more however, as there is a worrying normalisation of food bank provision within the welfare system. This is a key reason for why we had speakers at the tournament that talked about community food provision, food poverty and community responses to it.
“There should be something like this in every council/village/town” – feedback from someone who attended our 5-a-side Football for Food tournament.
All teams were presented with an award at the end of the tournament by Nick Waterfield for taking part with the winners winning the “Football for Food 5-a-side Trophy”. Sheffield Live and BBC Radio Sheffield covered the tournament event too.
We had 7 volunteers that helped out on the day:
- Kate, helped with selling merchandise and counting up the food donated on the day.
- Sarah R helped with counting up the food donated on the day.
- Sarah C recorded the scores of the games, the goalscorers and updated the league tables coordinating with the referees.
- David helped with coordinating the speaker section of the event.
- Theo helped with counting up food and collecting survey and demographic information.
- Sharon helped with taking the food collected away at the end of the game.
- Nick Waterfield from Parson Cross food bank helped out by providing teams the timetable of the day and a tournament booklet when they got there and also presented the awards.
We are planning for this to be an annual event – responding to the feedback we have got from running our first ever tournament – until food banks are not required at the extent they are. We do not want food bank use to be normalised but understand how valuable they are at times like these and are encouraged to carry on given the positive feedback regarding our campaign and events run as part of this.
“Great campaign to raise awareness, collect food and have fun whilst doing it” – feedback from someone who attended our 5-a-side Football for Food tournament.
“It is an excellent initiative, as it helps on three levels: 1) Practical volunteer support 2) Donations 3 ) Raising awareness” – feedback from someone who attended our 5-a-side Football for Food tournament.
We also had a video produced documenting the Football for Food 5-a-side tournament which includes interviews with some of the speakers and players that took part in the event.
“Effective, well run and a brilliant way to raise awareness and help those relying on food banks” – player feedback regarding the campaign.
Media Coverage
The project has received considerable media coverage:
- The campaign was covered in the Now Then online magazine
- The campaign was covered by South Yorkshire Sport online
- The Sheffield Star covered the campaign online
- Our Manager spoke on BBC Radio Sheffield about the campaign
- Sheffield Live covered our City Centre kick-up events
- The campaign was covered in a print edition of the Sheffield magazine, Now Then
“It’s brilliant! It makes such a difference and it’s something nice to get involved in instead of just playing football” – player feedback regarding the campaign.
Key Campaign Achievements
- Through the expansion we collected 1118 items of food working out to be around 432 kilograms of food.
- Ran a series of events that not only collected food but also raised awareness of the campaign and why we are running the campaign as a club.
- Demonstrated the potential for football to be more than a game, and football clubs to be key agents for social change.
- Raised awareness of the scale, extent and reasons for food poverty with an emphasis on the local context.
- Changed people’s opinions on food poverty and the use of food banks, tackling myths and misconceptions e.g. on who uses food banks.
- Engaged a wide range of people across Sheffield and beyond in the events and the campaign.
- Achieved wide spread coverage for the campaign, the campaign being key to us winning awards.
- Engaged several volunteers in the campaign organisation, research and implementation, increasing confidence, skills and social networking.
- Empowered 11-a-side players as positive role models through their involvement with the campaign.
- Helped improve our promotion of the regular food collections we do at our home games, helping us produce marketing material we can utilise beyond the project to keep advertising this.
- Increased our connections with food banks in Sheffield, understanding the need more and how we can make the campaign work better from now onwards.
Long-Term Plan
We want to do more work on raising awareness of the causes of food poverty, with real life stories and the impact this has had something we will look at doing more on. We have done a lot on sharing statistics and the extent of food poverty, but we can definitely do more on producing real life stories that people can connect with that can relate to challenging the normalisation of food poverty.