Newcastle United players Geremi and Martins swap their boots for shopping bags
On Friday 5th October, Newcastle United’s Captain Geremi and centre-forward Obafemi Martins teamed up with the charity Meningitis UK through the Premier League’s ‘Creating Chances’ programme and donated their time to pack shoppers’ bags at ASDA in the Metro Centre to raise money for Meningitis UK and awareness of the disease. The ‘Creating Chances’ programme has been designed by the Premier League to highlight the amount of charity and community work football clubs do.
Geremi said “I think it is very important to support charities like Meningitis UK. For people to lose friends and family is very difficult and that is something which can happen with meningitis. I know what it is like, because I lost one of my good friends Marc Viven Foe, who died on the football pitch. It was the worst moment of my life, so I know how bad losing a close one is. That is why I had no hesitation to get involved in this.”
Obafemi Martins said “Helping a charity is a really worthwhile thing to do. I enjoyed packing bags at ASDA and meeting the fans. It was also good to put something back into the community. My brothers and my mum often do my food shopping so bag packing is difficult for me. Meningitis UK’s focus is to find a vaccine to eradicate the disease – it is a really worthwhile cause as it can happen so quickly and cause total devastation.”
Whilst at the store, the players presented the charity with a cheque for £2,000 courtesy of The Premiere League. Newcastle United also generously donated a football shirt signed by the whole team which was raffled to help raise funds for the charity. Tickets for the raffle, of which the shirt was first prize, were on sale all week at the ASDA store in the Metro Centre and the draw was done by Geremi and Martins after they helped pack shoppers bags!
All the proceeds raised will go towards the charity’s ‘Search 4 a Vaccine Campaign’ which was launched earlier this year. The campaign signals the start of a major phase in the search for a vaccine for meningococcal group B - the most common form of meningitis in the UK, which accounts for almost 90% of all cases and for which there is still no vaccine. The aim of the Campaign is to raise £7million over the next seven years to help develop a vaccine against meningitis B.
Steve Dayman, Chief Executive of Meningitis UK said, “It was great to team up with such a high profile football club. We are really grateful to both Geremi and Obafemi Martins for their time and effort in helping us to raise money and awareness of the disease.”
To support the charity’s Search 4 a Vaccine Campaign or find out more about the Meningitis UK’s work, please phone 0117 373 7373 or visit www.meningitisUK.org
MeningitisUK · Registered Charity No.1076774
