The Swans Trust were delighted to be invited to the inaugural Swansea City Community Trust Celebration Event at the Liberty Stadium, along with hundreds of people from right across the South West Wales community.

The awards ceremony was held in order to recognise the outstanding contribution, hard work and determination made by people from the local community, across a wide range of initiatives covered by the Community Trust.

These initiatives included:

• Premier League 4 Sport – Encourage young people to take up sport;
• Premier League Schools – Provide football related support, guidance and sessions to Primary Schools in the region;
• Hearty Lives Project – British Heart Foundation initiative with Neath Port Talbot CVS to reduce risk of Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD);
• Premier League Enterpise – Engage, inspire and teach students’ basic business principles;
• SwansAid – The Swans own grant giving pot, giving out grants totalling £50k per annum;
• Healthy Together Project – Family healthy lifestyle programme;
• Sign Up To Success – Pilot programme to provide support to young people (16-25) who appear to have most diffiuclty moving into work;
• Premier League Kicks – Project aimed at using football to bring communities together and engage with young people;

Kevin Johns was compere for the afternoon, with Lee Trundle, Angel Rangel, Federico Fernandez, Jefferson Montero and award sponsors in attendance to present the awards to the worthy recipients.

A representative from the Premier League gave the audience an overview of the Creating Chances initiative which provides a framework from which clubs in the Premier League deliver their community projects.

Club sponsors GWFX presented some of the community awards as well as presenting the raffle prize draw winner with 4 tickets for the Premier League home clash with Manchester City.

The event was a huge success and it was a pleasure to see the fantastic recipients receiving their well-deserved awards.  The afternoon also provided those present with an insight into the often unnoticed work done by the Swans in the Community and it was heart-warming to see (and hear) the positive impact that it was having on so many people in so many different areas.

Hopefully the positive impact the Community Trust Initiatives have had to date can be built upon and in future years’ make an even bigger difference to the people in the local community.

You can keep up to date with the latest Swansea City Community Trust news via the Community Trust website or you can follow them on twitter @scfccommunitytr

If you are based in South West Wales and think that your charity or community organisation could benefit from a grant, then SwansAid may be able to help you.  To find out more details about the fund, eligibility and how to apply visit the SwansAid web page.