Everton Football Club’s award-winning charity Everton in the Community has been awarded £25,000 in emergency funding to support its increased outreach work.

Established in 1988, Everton in the Community aims to use the power of sport to motivate, educate and inspire local people to improve their life chances.

The organisation has won more than 80 national and international awards and although it’s Everton’s official charity it’s run separately and is completely self-financing.

Everton in the Community has seen a big drop in its revenue because of Covid-19 and has been awarded £25,000 by the Steve Morgan Foundation to help cover some of the losses whilst increasing the support it provides the local community in the wake of the pandemic.

Four weeks ago the charity launched the ‘Blue Family’ initiative, which has seen staff from across the club join them in offering support and assistance to more than 2,500 vulnerable, socially isolated and at-risk individuals and families across Liverpool.

This has been done through welfare phone calls, emergency food and hygiene parcels as well as medical prescriptions and gas and electricity vouchers.

The Blue Family initiative has also provided vital supplies for the North Liverpool Foodbank and helped fund food vouchers for local children living in poverty who have lost access to free school meals, essential kitchen equipment, housing support and items such as TVs and radios for people who are self-isolating alone. 

Everton in the Community CEO Richard Kenyon said: “We are incredibly grateful to the Steve Morgan Foundation for supporting our charity during this difficult time. Like many other non-profit organisations across the country, we have suffered from a loss of income in recent weeks and this interim grant of £25,000 will help cover some of those losses but more importantly, will allow us to further develop our Blue Family initiative to ensure we are doing all we can to provide vital care and assistance to those who need it most at this time.”

Steve Morgan, founder of the Steve Morgan Foundation, has pledged to give £1m-a-week to charities in North Wales, Cheshire and Merseyside during the initial 12 weeks of Covid-19 to help them support vulnerable people.

A life-long football fan and former owner of Wolverhampton Wanderers, Morgan said: “Football clubs are pivotal to communities and I know from experience what a difference they make to the people to the areas they serve. Everton in the Community has won countless awards for its work and they’ve stepped up the support they’ve offered to the most vulnerable in the wake of Covid-19. We’re delighted to be able to support them during these difficult times.”