Huddersfield Town are one such EFL Club going the extra mile this December with their unique Letters for Christmas initiative.
A project that was born out of the pandemic, the Terriers decided to extend that goodwill into the festive period, teaming up with local charity and social enterprise ‘Give… A Few Words’ to reach out to the wider community around Christmastime.
Huddersfield Town Club Ambassador, Andy Booth, emphasised the role that the Club plays in the local community and the power the Terriers have to make a difference.
“It started in lockdown and it seemed to gather a lot of momentum,” he explained. “We thought, why can’t we carry it on? What it is, is just sending a letter or even just a drawing to people who may not see anybody for weeks or month at a time, especially during lockdown.
“Huddersfield Town, like every other Club, are the heart of the community. We, as a Club, saw the initiative and we spoke to them.
“We realised there are so many Huddersfield fans, or just football fans, that can’t get to a game anymore, but they’re still interested in the Club. We even asked fans if they wanted to put a little message in the card about Huddersfield Town and what’s been happening.”
The West Yorkshire side invited fans of the Club to write a letter or card, or, alternatively, produce an illustration to be sent anonymously to people within the local community as part of the initiative suggested by Terriers Supporter Services Manager, Robyn Kennderdale.
“We produced a red post-box and invited our supporters to come down to our activity zone or fan area and write letters or a card or junior members to draw a picture,” Terriers stalwart Booth said. “They post it in the post-box, send them to Give… A Few Words and they distribute them to the surrounding community and the Calderdale area.
“It’s our way of reaching out to some of the elderly people in the community. We all know how important Christmas is to everybody with seeing family and friends, and there’s so many, mainly older people, who won’t be seeing anybody this Christmas.
“What we will be doing at the game against Coventry, which is our last game before Christmas, bringing some first-team players into the family area, and they’ll be writing a letter or a Christmas card, and trying to encourage other fans to come down and do the same.”
The Sky Bet Championship side have already received an overwhelming response from the Terriers’ fanbase, with supporters flocking to the activity area at the John Smith’s Stadium to give back to the local community for the visits of West Bromwich Albion and Middlesbrough in November.
And former striker Booth hopes the initiative will snowball even further when Coventry City arrive in West Yorkshire later in the month.
“The first game, we had quite a lot of letters and it was great to see when we brought the junior fans down and they realised they didn’t have to write a letter, they could draw a picture. We had three, four, five and six-year-old supporters sat in the activity zone writing pictures of their favourite players or the stadium.
“At the last home game, the post-box was practically full. I’m sure at the next game, there’ll be even more people when they hear about it.
“If we can spread some seasonal cheer to our fans and to anybody in the local community, it’s all been worthwhile.”
In the lead up to Christmas we will be highlighting some of the amazing work EFL Clubs do to support their local communities.