From today (Monday April 4) to Friday, April 8 the English Football League (EFL) will launch its first ever Week of Action.
City will join all 72 Clubs and Club Community Organisations to showcase activity with EFL players and managers joining participants across England and Wales.
We will be using the week to showcase the wide and varied work the Club, Supporters' Trust, Academy, partner charity City Community Trust and our fans do together and individually for our community.
On Tuesday afternoon we are hosting a special event at St James Park with Manager Matt Taylor, Captain Matt Jay, Vice-Captain Pierce Sweeney and Exeter City Women's Captain Manfy Sharpe where they will meet with people that CCT have supported over the last 12 months for tea and cake and a Q&A session.
On Wednesday, Manager Matt Taylor will be running a special coaching session at Exwick Sports Hub for St Martins under-14s.
CCT deliver inspiring physical activity, education, health and wellbeing programmes and courses primarily across Devon and Somerset for all members of the community regardless of ethnicity, age, gender, physical ability, background or economic status.
They are delivering on the frontline daily, spending around 22,000 hours out in the community every year striving to improve life chances for all, often in the most deprived areas of Greater Exeter and among the most disadvantaged groups in our society.
While football is their beating heart, their work in the community has grown to extend far beyond. CCT programmes reach more than 45,000 members of our community each year and around 48% of our work is not football-related. The spread of our work is growing all the time.
Find out more about CITY Community Trust
Their aim is to get everyone to know you don’t have to play football, support football … or even like football … to benefit or participate. They are open and accessible to all, young and old, whoever you are, whatever your ability or background.
To find out more about CCT, please click here.
EFL Week of Action Using the power of football, EFL Clubs and Club Community Organisations (CCOs) collectively invest over £59m in their communities every year, engaging with some of the most vulnerable members of society.
In 2021, EFL Clubs and CCOs were recognised at both the Leaders Sports Awards and Sports Business Awards for the important and unique role they played in supporting their local communities during the pandemic.
Rick Parry, Chair of the EFL, said: “EFL Clubs are embedded in the towns and cities from which they take their name and this bond is strengthened by the life changing initiatives they run across England and Wales every single day. The EFL Week of Action is an opportunity for us to celebrate this invaluable work and demonstrate the remarkable difference clubs have on their communities away from the pitch.”
Liam Scully, Chair of the EFL Trust, said: “Clubs’ work in their communities happens on a huge scale day in day out and directly aligns with priorities for the people in our communities both locally and on a national scale. “The hours that are committed by our Club and Community Organisation teams and volunteers demonstrates an unwavering commitment to improving lives up and down the country and building stronger, healthier more active communities.”