Over the past 16 months, Cambridge United & the Cambridge United Community Trust have been committed to helping seniors in our community through an exceptionally challenging period...
For over a year, the Community Trust has been taking part in socially distanced Garden Gate visits with local seniors as part of the Club's 'Forever United' project. This week, to highlight Loneliness Awareness Week, we took the League Two Runners Up Trophy on tour to visit many of the seniors that the Club has kept in touch with during the pandemic.
Simon Wall, Comunity Trust Communities Manager said, "Sharing the promotion success of Cambridge United by taking the trophy on tour was a brilliant idea. Seeing our senior participants holding the trophy was really uplifting and I could tell that it really made their day."
View the best photos from the visits using the above gallery, courtesy of CFU's Ben Phillips.
Cambridge United Community Trust's commitment to helping seniors in the local community has been supported via funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) through the English Football League Trust’s 'Tackling Loneliness Together' project.
From the 1,200 wellbeing check-in calls to seniors over the first 3 months to the 100+ virtual afternoon teas & matchday chats it has conducted, 'Forever United’ has been a great success. More than 346 seniors have been engaged in a whole host of different ways and have helped reduce anxiety within that group by 9% from June 2020 to January 2021.
Indeed, over half claim to be feeling 'significantly lower' with regards to isolation and 96% of participants felt the 'Forever United' programme had made them feel more socially connected.
The 'Forever United' programme will be continuing into the future so stay tuned for more announcements with new Health Walks, Walking Football sessions, Dementia Sports Cafés & much more starting very soon.