Action for Sport

The team use this presentation as an education opportunity, including information on what Action For Sport does and outcomes they have already achieved, as well as talking through the impact of poverty on participation, the benefits of sport and physical activity on health and wellbeing, and the importance of protecting our environment.  

Action For Sport works with the schools and sports clubs to identify which children would benefit the most from gifted sporting kit. The team then deliver the kit to these children at school discreetly.

Collection points for the donation of quality sporting kit are set up at schools, local sports clubs, sport centres, libraries, or any other community hub. The Action For Sport team drive and publicise the collection for two weeks at a time, keeping up the energy and momentum. The team has found that collection points work best when they are active for a limited time, as long-term collection points can fizzle out and be forgotten.  

The donations are mostly outgrown sporting footwear and clothing, with some donations of sporting equipment, like boxing gloves, hockey sticks, and cricket bats.   

For example, some of the partnerships include Active Leeds, Active Bradford, Yorkshire Sport Foundation, West Riding County FA, and Nuffield Health Gym. These partners help introduce Action For Sport to new schools, supporters and funders, further connecting them throughout the community.  

More recently, Action For Sport has started partnering with local sports stores and brands. These businesses send Action For Sport their unsold items, destined for landfill, for distribution to those who need them the most.

This has a positive impact on the people receiving the new kit, as well as saving perfectly good clothing and shoes from being sent to landfill or incinerated.

"It’s been about making companies aware – you don’t have to send this kit to landfill," says Clive Michallat from Action For Sport. "It’s a win-win, saving landfill and helping kids."

From these sports store and brand partnerships, the team believe they have saved over five tonnes of clothing and shoes from landfill.

The Action For Sport team is now looking to start redistributing the stores' 'seconds' or returned items. Unfortunately, returned 'change of mind' shoes are often shredded and sent to waste, rather than re-homed.

With recent National Lottery Community Fund funding, Action For Sport distributed 4,000 items within eight months.  

"Since we’ve become a charity, we have transferred 10,000 pieces of sports kit," adds Clive.

The first donations were targeted at students who were persistent absentees. Since the donations, the school has seen an increase in these students’ attendance, and more regular attendance at physical education classes and after-school sports.  

In numbers, the Action For Sport Bradford project has achieved:

• 4,654 families living in poverty provided with sports kit  
• £82,775 worth of sports kit distributed to families living in poverty  
• 2.91 tonnes of sports kit saved from landfill 

"Action For Sport has made a huge difference to our children, and it has increased the number of participants in sport at our school," says Rory Thompson, from Aldertree Primary School in Leeds.

"It has also fostered a sense of kindness where the children will pass the shoes onto their team-mates when they have grown out of them."

Action For Sport are keen to see this initiative spread across the country. The team are looking to set up a national hub, with centralised support and training for new local groups.