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Comic Relief has been celebrating the first birthday of The Supporters Club, BT Sport’s initiative to build a better world by bringing people together through sport. This week, the initiative marks its one year anniversary by announcing three new grants, along with a series of ‘We Are One’ celebrations and a television ‘Best of’ documentary.
The Supporters Club uses donations from BT Sport customers to invest in projects selected in partnership with Comic Relief. In its first year the initiative has raised £2.5 million and backed 13 projects in the UK and overseas, with over 80,000 people now signed up to The Supporters Club.
When customers sign up to BT Sport, they are able to make a recurring £1, £3, or £5 monthly donation to The Supporters Club. BT and Comic Relief work closely together to allocate this money, with the aim of building a sustainable grant-making fund that will support projects which use sport as an enabler for social change.
To mark the anniversary, three new grants have been announced that will go to the UK charities CLIC Sargent, Active Communities Network and Street League.
Former England, Real Madrid and Liverpool striker Michael Owen kicked off celebrations at the South West London Academy of Street League, taking part in an employability session with youngsters from South London and helping to lead a coaching session.
The ‘We Are One’ celebrations also saw a host of sporting talent send thank you video messages via Vine, with Clare Balding, Jake Humphrey, Austin Healey, Lawrence Dallaglio and Dan Purvis all taking part.
Kevin Cahill, Chief Executive of Comic Relief, said “It’s wonderful to be able to look back on the first year of the Supporters Club and celebrate over £2.5m raised by BT and its customers. That money is hard at work funding projects that use sport as a tool to change lives. It’s reaching people here at home in the UK and in the poorest communities across the world. BT has led the way and shown great imagination and compassion in linking the launch of BT Sport to such a ground breaking initiative and we thank them for it.”
Over the past year, The Supporters Club has produced six TV documentaries on BT Sport to showcase its work. As part of ‘We Are One’ BT Sport will show a compilation show of these documentaries entitled We Are One: The Supporters Club’ at 8pm on 27th June on BT Sport 1.
Follow The Supporters Club on Twitter @supporters(opens in new window) or www.supportersclub.org(opens in new window) for more information.
