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ECB Launch £1million #Funds4Runs Initiative To Support Recreational Cricket
ECB Launch £1million #Funds4Runs Initiative To Support Recreational Cricket
The initiative i aimed at helping the grassroots cricket community recover and rebuild financially following the COVID-19 pandemic
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and LV= General Insurance (LV= GI) have this week launched #Funds4Runs – a pioneering initiative aimed at helping the grassroots cricket community recover and rebuild financially following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The £1m investment, jointly funded by the ECB and LV=GI, will focus on key areas where access to cricket support or cricket itself has been limited - children from deprived backgrounds, diverse communities, disability groups and women and girls’ programmes.
The initiative, and LV=GI’s support, will also help deliver against three wider ECB objectives – delivering the purpose of ‘connecting communities and improving lives’ through cricket, increasing the relevance of cricket locally and growing long-term engagement with the game in these communities.
Financial support from the initiative will be accessible to affiliated clubs, All Stars cricket centres, Community organisations, County Cricket Boards and Cricket Wales. Interested parties can register their interest in #Funds4Runs funding at ecb.co.uk/funds4runs or find out more information at lv.com/gi/cricket now.
As an organisation and a sport, we are hugely dependent on the role which cricket clubs play in their local communities. At every level of the game, COVID-19 has presented some of the toughest challenges we’ve ever faced.
I am both incredibly grateful and proud of the work put in by thousands of volunteers across England and Wales, in order to get the recreational game back on in the summer. What they managed to achieve was outstanding and will be important in helping safeguard the future of our game.
However, I am mindful that in many areas the pandemic has taken its toll. That’s why I am really excited that through this new partnership with LV= we will be supporting the areas hit hardest, either through boosting participation or by helping clubs connect with their communities. Both LV= and the ECB are delighted to be working with the BFI to bring the latter to life.
Tom Harrison, ECB Chief Executive Officer
All Stars Cricket provides a first experience for children aged 5-8 years old through eight 60-minute sessions, held over eight weeks of fun, activity and skills development. The programme is designed to introduce children to the sport, teaching them new skills, helping them make new friends and have a great time doing so.
All Stars Cricket is a paid for programme but #Funds4Runs will fund facility hire in areas of deprivation and subsidised places for underprivileged children, in the first instance in Hayes and Canning Town in London, and Thurmaston just outside of Leicester.
This funding of All Stars Cricket projects will be extended to urban areas in every County region going forward.
#Funds4Runs was launched at a virtual event hosted by Isa Guha & Michael Vaughan with professional cricketers from England’s men’s, women’s and disability teams - Mark Wood, Lauren Winfield-Hill & Jordan Williams.
