Weeks after providing a funding boost for Everton in the Community, Redrow tycoon Steve Morgan has now contributed to a £2.6m funding package for the LFC Foundation. Tony McDonough reports

A £2.6m funding package from Redrow tycoon Steve Morgan and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will allow the LFC Foundation to help young people in disadvantaged communities.

In early November it was revealed Mr Morgan, via the Steve Morgan Foundation had given half of £1.5m funding package, as part of the Government’s Community Match Challenge initiative, to Everton in the Community.

Now, more money will go to the Reds’ charitable arm will help fund six new LFC Foundation Community Wellbeing Hubs by the end of January 2021. All will be based at existing community venues operated by partner community organisations in Anfield, Kirkby Toxteth, Bootle, Birkenhead, and Speke.

VIDEO: Click to see more about how the money will be spent

The funding will enable the Reds’ official charity to reach more children and young people in high need communities and focus on key services to help support the city’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The hubs will provide a wide range of LFC Foundation community programmes and services providing a broad offering to children, young people and their families. They will also help to break down barriers that some members of the community experience accessing programmes, such as proximity and the cost of travel.

The foundation will expand its successful Premier League programme Kicks and employability provision ‘Works,’ as well as its inclusion and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) school programmes, which will provide a range of free and  inclusive sessions to over 4,000 participants.

Its expansion also allows the LFC Foundation to deliver specialist inclusion sports sessions in every SEND school across Merseyside.

Matt Parish, director of LFC Foundation, said: “To receive this level of support from both the Steve Morgan Foundation and the DCMS is amazing. This will enable us to deliver more programmes in the heart of communities across the Liverpool city region.

“The Steve Morgan Foundation is already one of the biggest providers of grant funding to community groups and charities in the region and this round of funding will take that up to an even greater level.”

Mr Morgan added: “The Foundation is proud to have been awarded £10m of government funding, which the Foundation is matching pound for pound to support charities and not for profit organisations to continue delivering essential services in the face of the pandemic.”