The supporters of Cheltenham Town have come together this Christmas to support our community.
In recent weeks, our fans have successfully taken part in this year's Kitmas initiative, raising almost £1,000 to donate more than 45 replica shirts for children.
The national campaign is the work of Paul Watson, his wife Lizzie and comedians Vix Leyton and Mark Watson, ensuring more than 2,000 shirts will be gifted to low income families during the festive period.
In the end it raised close to £30,000, receiving widespread coverage in the news and from the likes of Gary Lineker on social media.
Earlier today we were able to handover the shirts to Cordell Ray MBE from Caring for Community and People (CCP) who will be delivering them to young football fans this week.
They will be hand delivered to children at Oakwood, Gardners Lane, Sir Thomas More, Hester's Way and Springbank schools.
CCP is a Cheltenham-based organisation that exists to transform the lives of children, young people, families and vulnerable adults by delivering services and projects in Gloucestershire.
Staff and an army of almost 1,000 volunteers from local businesses are working day and night to process 60,000 food items for their Hamper Scamper campaign which ends this coming Friday, by which point more than 2,200 packages will have been distributed.
"With the help of the Cheltenham Town supporters we have been able to give the replica tops to families receiving a hamper," said Cordell, Chief Executive at CCP (pictured above).
"This is an extra, unexpected gift to some families really struggling to make ends meet. We now from experience they will be really grateful.
"On behalf of everyone at CCP, Hamper Scamper and the families we support I'd like to say a huge thanks to the club and its supporters for choosing to support our festive appeal."
There has also been a brilliant response to the Robins Trust's Christmas appeal to support Cheltenham Open Door, a local charity founded to help relieve poverty, hardship and distress. Each Christmas they organise meals and gift bags, free of charge, for the homeless and on matchdays our fans have been donating essential items for both.
It caps another impressive collective effort by our fans to support our community this year. This summer they crowdfunded a commemorative book to mark our historic title win back in May with the proceeds donated to the club, enabling almost 2,000 kids to watch Michael Duff's side for only £1 during October.
Back in January the special edition of our matchday programme for the FA Cup tie against Manchester City raised more than £5,000 for FareShare. There was also a fundraiser to win Michael Duff's lucky gilet, supporting the Hollie Gazzard Trust.
It all adds up to another amazing effort by everyone over the past 12 months and we would like to thank you, our wonderful fans, for supporting our community throughout the year with the various campaigns.