Following the successful links that the club has had with the Great Western Air Ambulance and St Peter’s Hospice over the last two seasons, the choice to support the British Heart Foundation was made after recently watching Tom Lockyer, the Luton Town defender, on BBC Breakfast thanking the paramedics who saved his life after having a cardiac arrest on the pitch during the Premier League match at Bournemouth last season. The thought of working with the British Heart Foundation and helping local people gain the confidence and knowledge of how to administer CPR inspired the idea and if this initiative can help save just one life, then it will have been worth it. The club are planning to hold CPR training sessions in the clubhouse and information sessions using the BHF online tool RevivR, which can also be found on the British Heart Foundation CPR training tab.
The first CPR training session at the club will be on Thursday 25th September at 7.30pm. The club will be letting people know how to register for one of these sessions shortly via the club’s weekly newsletter but strongly recommend that anyone who cannot attend in person takes just 15 minutes to learn this at home. All you need is your phone and a cushion. You can use this link: bhf.org/revivr or scan the QR code in the image below.
We have also set up a JustGiving page where fans can make their own donations to support this charity. You can donate here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/yatetownfc
Yate Town will be holding a bucket collection for the British Heart Foundation at their Community Day on Saturday 18th October when Walton & Hersham are the visitors to the South West Interiors Stadium for this “Pay What You Want” fixture and other fund-raising opportunities will be shared during the season. The Yate Town fans have been very supportive in the past towards the club’s charity of the season and all this has been greatly appreciated by those organisations. We hope that this will continue.
British Heart Foundation Fundraising Manager for Bristol, Bath & Gloucestershire, Louise Gallard commented, “We are excited to be working with Yate Town Football Club this season and look forward to seeing what we can achieve together. In support of the 7.6m people across the UK living with a heart or circulatory condition, we’re continuing to invest in groundbreaking research across the country to save and improve lives. But we know we have more work to do. We want to stop heart disease before it happens, save more lives from heart disease and support people to live well with heart disease. Our partnership with the club will help us raise awareness as well as funds to fuel those goals, and we are very grateful for the chance to work with the team at the club as well as meet the fans.”
Yate Town Chairman, Mark Thorne, pleased to link in with the British Heart Foundation said, ”I am really proud that again we have a charity of the year for the club. The British Heart Foundation is an amazing organisation and we’re very happy to give our support. It’s not all about the money we raise as it’s also about the awareness. We have agreed to hold some CPR training sessions in the clubhouse. Hopefully we will never have to use the training but if we do and save one life that would be amazing.”