Arsenal will provide more than 30,000 free meals, as well as essential items such as sanitary and personal hygiene products to the most vulnerable in the local community, as an initiative to combat against COVID-19.
Through The Arsenal Foundation, the Premier League club has joined forces with HIS Church to deliver 15 tonnes of emergency supplies into Islington as part of the borough’s emergency response plan.
Arsenal also helped community staff volunteer to transport frontline NHS workers.
The Arsenal Foundation has also pledged £100k to local organisations and redirected a further £50k of partnership funding with Islington Giving towards their COVID-19 Crisis Fund.
Alan Sefton MBE, Head of Arsenal in the Community, said they are playing their part to ensure the community is being taken care of.
“We are very proud to be able to support the people of Islington during this challenging time. Islington Council have set up an extremely well-coordinated response and it is essential that we play our part in supporting that.
“This aligned community response is the result of a lot of hard work and collaboration with a number of local organisations. By working together with Islington Council and others, we hope we can continue to identify and support those in our local community who most need our support.”
The Arsenal Foundation and Arsenal in the Community have a long history of working with HIS Church, a registered charity based in Lincolnshire that has been providing help to foodbanks across the country for the past 13 years.
Before the COVID-19 outbreak, HIS Church were distributing just over 50,000 meals a week across the UK.
Due to overwhelming demand, they are now distributing around 200,000 meals a week through a network of more than 15,000 charities.