It's the EFL's Week Of Action for the 2023/24 season. Every day of this week we will be highlighting and celebrating the work done in our community by the football club and the Cheltenham Town Community Trust.
Today we take a closer look at a project we briefly mentioned in our piece from Monday, it's our recent community third kit competition. Back in early September, we launched the competition in partnership with our principal partners Mira Showers and their charity of the year, Child Poverty Action Group.
The organisation works on behalf of the one in four children in the UK growing up in poverty. More than 900,000 kids alone miss out on free school meals in England.
We reached out to local schools and our young fanbase to get supporters aged 14 and under to showcase their creativity. The remit? To design our new third jersey, all with the view of producing the kit to be worn by the first-team during our Boxing Day fixture with Shrewsbury Town.
And we received some incredible designs from almost 60 schools, which we put to Robins manager Darrell Clarke, who had the tricky task of picking our eventual winner.
It was young Ruby Barnes from Warden Hill Primary School, aged 6 who produced our winning pink and black design. The chairman David Bloxham was pitch side at our home match with Cambridge United to present our winner and her family with a signed frame of the design.
Now we can excitedly look forward to our festive home fixtures, starting with the visit of Leyton Orient, which will see all our entrants attend our League One match free of charge.
Then it's all eyes on Boxing Day, when Ruby will lead out the first-team at the Completely-Suzuki Stadium wearing our brand new community third kit. There will also be a limited amount available in the shop on the day, with the proceeds going towards the charity.
"We have been so impressed with the creative talent on show," said director Murry Toms.
"It hasn't been the easiest of times to use our platform for good but the appetite for this community campaign was a timely reminder of what the club is all about.
"The way our staff, partners and young supporters at nearly 60 schools have come together to promote the vital work of Child Poverty Action Group has been absolutely brilliant, and we can't wait to see it on Boxing Day."
The initiative has been a club-wide success that really highlights the amount of young supporters we have interested in Cheltenham Town in the community.