For the second year running, Coppinger and the Doncaster Rovers kitman had kindly donated a lot of warm up kit, training kit and socks for us to give out to the community.
Last year we gave it to MHFC members, however this year, with the majority of the kit being numbered and a little more special, we decided to open it up to all Doncaster Rovers fans, whether they were MHFC members or not.
We put posts on social media, and quite a lot of people were interested, we also organised for Black Bank to come down with their stuff, not only to build awareness for Black Bank but also to sell some of their stuff if they could.
Leading up to the day of the event, I was getting increasingly nervous about running out of things for people to take, as I really didn’t want anyone travelling for no reason, or leaving sad.
Thankfully, to help with this, Duane and Chris from ClubDoncaster found more stuff, including Doncaster Belles stuff, including shirts, the DRFC Supporters Club donated old programmes and Blank Bank donated stickers.
This put my mind at ease a little, but I still didn’t want anyone travelling or going home empty handed and sad.
I was quite worried about how I’d feel on the day, as I’d have all day to think about it with the event starting at 6:30pm.
But, knowing I had the help and support of Jake and Chris, who I know very well through MHFC as they’re both a big part of it, I knew they’d be able to lead the event, this took the pressure and stress off me, and Duane was there for the Club Doncaster side of things.
On the day we decided to get there earlier than originally discussed, as we wanted to make sure we were set up with plenty of time to spare.
BUT, even though we arrived at around 5:30pm, there were ALREADY people queuing!!!
I was feeling fairly calm until this moment.
Once we’d got set up and ready, we decided to start at 6pm instead, as the queue was starting to reach the entrance.
I got in contact with Black Bank so they could get set up for the earlier time.
Then we got going…. Due to it being our first time and not fully knowing what to expect, we were always trying to adapt and improve in real time.
We got told that the queue was out the door, no one expected this, and it added a little more pressure.
The room we had all the clothing laid out in was fairly small, so with Jake and Chris doing a good job in the room, I decided to leave them to it as they had everything under control, and they’d have more room if I wasn’t in there.
Throughout the event, Duane, Chris and Abby from Club Doncaster, along with Jordan from Black Bank, made sure to keep everyone in the queue as happy as they could by handing stuff out, I massively appreciate this as they were proactive in doing this which I’m thankful for.
We had Ellie on hand, getting photos and videos to capture the event as well which helped as I didn’t need to think about that side of things as the event was going on.
As we got to the last several people, things quickly calmed down, and you could feel the room relax.
It had taken one hour for all the stuff to go, we had OVER 200 things to giveaway, this was mostly player training and warm up clothing, but we also had Doncaster Belles shirts, football socks, DRFC programmes, football bags, footballs and football boots.
In total, we had OVER 100 people attend the event and take some stuff.
The main thing was people taking stuff and being happy to have it, an opportunity they may not get very often, to own player kit, seeing people smile was enough, but some did donate to MHFC Doncaster, which was just an added bonus.
We raised £135 in total.
Now we’ve had time to reflect…. It was more popular than we thought, but it was just the right amount of people.
To say it was the first time we’d done it, it was successful and ran fairly smoothly, there are things we noticed and if we’re lucky enough to do it again, we’ll change and improve for next time.
Thank you to everyone who came, everyone who donated to MHFC Doncaster, and of course Jake, Chris, Duane and Ellie for all your help and support with the event.
Hopefully, we can do it again next year.
You can see some photos of the event below….
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I hope to collaborate with more brands, teams, players etc so we can do as many of these as we can and for as many people as we can.
You can read about previous surprises here https://www.mentalhealthfc.org/category/mhfc-surprises/
If anyone or companies would like to support, donate to or sponsor MHFC please get in touch at hello@mentalhealthfc.org
