A Newport football club has scooped a £5,000 cash award as part of a leading housebuilder’s hugely successful charity campaign supporting under-18s.
Persimmon Homes has handed out more than £1,000,000 in cash prizes to organisations across England, Scotland and Wales as a part of its Building Futures campaign, supporting three categories, sport, education & arts and health.
Newport Girls’ Football Club, which represented Persimmon Homes West Midlands, invites girls aged six to 16 plus to play football no matter what their ability or background. The club is a member of Shropshire FA, and fields seven teams in the Shropshire Girls’ & Women’s League. Older girls are steered towards referring, coaching or the FA Youth Council to encourage growth, and qualifications are paid for by the club.
Telford-based Challenging Perceptions and Lichfield Garrick Theatre also represented Persimmon Homes West Midlands in the final. Each group received £5,000.
Persimmon Homes congratulated 96 organisations for getting to the final stage of its Building Futures competition. During a gala dinner at York Racecourse, three finalists were each awarded the top prize of £100,000, three groups received a second prize of £50,000 and three the third prize of £20,000. The remaining 87 finalists were handed £5,000 each.
The first, second and third prize winners were decided by a public vote and more than 250,000 votes were cast.
Stephen Cleveley, director-in-charge at Persimmon Homes West Midlands, said: “The Building Futures scheme has been a great success and we had a brilliant evening celebrating the fantastic work of so many organisations supporting young people in our communities.
“We have been overwhelmed by both the response to the competition, and the hard work and dedication of those involved within all the groups.”
From February to May, Building Futures has also given away £128,000 to 128 organisations supporting young people in sport, education & arts and health throughout England, Scotland and Wales.
The £100,000 prize winner in the sport category was Scrappers Gym based in Swindon, Portsmouth Down Syndrome Association secured the award for education &arts and the Young People’s Counselling Service Annabelle Davis project in Peterborough was handed the health award.
The second prize awards of £50,000 went to Leeds Rowing Club for sport, UK Astronomy in Milton Keynes for education & arts and Norwich-based Toy Like Me for health.
Andover BMX Club scooped £20,000 for sport in third place, while Wargrave House in Newton-le Willows won the education & arts award and Butterwick Hospice Kidz Club in Stockton was handed the health award.
