THE charitable arm of Alvechurch Football Club – the Alvechurch Foundation – values its social impact on the village and surrounding areas at £2.9million.
Founded in 2022 by a group of football enthusiasts, the Foundation run a number of programmes which supports players from as young as five-years-old to over-65s.
The Foundation quantified its social value through a number of different metrics including volunteer hours (£1.1m), player wellbeing value (180k) and hours of social interaction (£145k).
Alvechurch’s sporting director, Mark Fogarty said: “We are absolutely delighted to be able to show the impact our work in the community has achieved.
“To provide clarity, this is in relation to the Foundation only.
“We haven’t taken into account the men’s first team at Lye Meadow or the women’s team or indeed our facility at the Hayes which are integral to the whole club.
“We have in excess of 50 junior teams which includes a large disability session plus the mental health provision.
“Walking football is also included as is our 46-player strong full time football and education programme for male and female 16 to 19-year-old players.
“Allied to this is our work with our partner ‘Birmingham Pathfinder’ – a collaborative programme supporting children and families facing adversity.
“We are doing a lot of work in local schools with the sessions run by some of our men’s first team players.
“We have many funded projects on the go which include, female-only sessions and work on the Hawkesley estate which is in one of the ‘left behind communities’ in the UK and several projects involving disability.
“We are very proud of this achievement.”
Some 296 volunteers and paid staff look after the club’s 106 adult players and 532 youth players.
And a total of 7,386 people participate in the Foundation’s various community programmes.
The Foundation calculates this generates £1.7million of total economic value for the local area.
This includes total wellbeing value (£974k), total health value (202k) and total social value (£24k).
