29 Jun 2022
On Saturday 28 May, the Purfleet branch of Scania invited the rest of the regions’ employees to the pitch for a charity fundraising football match.
With Scania-branded banners and flags, and London’s Air Ambulance Charity collection buckets and raffle tickets, the day was an event like Scania had never seen before.
“We had goodie bags for the children, and bubbles and balloons, it was a brilliant day,” described Sam Kennerley, Supervisor at Purfleet and the organiser of the day. Over 150 people attended the event to support the players and London’s Air Ambulance Charity. “We got through three books of raffle tickets!” said Sam.
During the 90 minute game of 11 a side, at half time Purfleet were winning 3-2. But sadly, the final score was 6-4 to the rest of the region.
“It was a really good game, and great fun. But I definitely should have scored in the second half!” said Sam. “We had 17 players for each team so we could roll on and off – some of us hadn’t kicked a ball for a very long time!”
At half time one of the managers ran a penalty shootout for the children. Paying a pound each, they had three goes to try and beat the goalie. Succeeding resulted in a free football to keep.
“That was a great way to give us a good breather at half time,” laughed Sam.
“I’ve been with Scania for eight years now, but we’ve never done anything like this before. It went so well, it was such a success, now we want to make it an annual affair.”
Each region of Scania chooses a charity to support throughout all yearly events, and Scania South East chose London’s Air Ambulance Charity.
“This event really got the region talking about charity fundraising and we’ll definitely do more for you in the future,” said Sam. “It really was a great day, the weather, the crowd and most importantly – the cause.”
Over £2,500 was raised during the charity day, and Scania’s head office has agreed to match the figure – meaning over £5,000 will be gifted to London’s Air Ambulance Charity. This is enough to fund more than two missions; helping our advanced trauma team reach more critically injured patients in London, when every second counts.
Scania is a world-leading provider of transport solutions, including trucks and buses for heavy transport applications, and we are grateful to them and their employees for their incredible fundraising efforts.
If you’re interested in fundraising for us, reach out via [email protected]. It doesn’t have to be a football match, individuals have recently raised vital funds through swimming events, 10K runs, and even periods of sobriety!
