Anyone who attends Celtic Park on a match day will have seen a couple of hundred Kano kids marching into the stadium or singing their hearts out behind the goal in the Lisbon Lions Stand. As well as getting into the game for free, each child receives a pre-match hot meal, a Celtic scarf and goody bag to take home.
The Kano Foundation’s mission is to treat youngsters, regardless of background or circumstance, to a day out at Celtic Park. Since season 2010/11 they have given a modern day ‘lift over the turnstile’ to over 10,000 children, varying from boys and girls football teams to local youth clubs and young people with special needs.
The Kano Foundation provides 134 different children, and 23 adults, with tickets to enter the stadium for each home game. Without these tickets, many families would never have been able to afford/enjoy a day out at Paradise.
In order to bring kids/families to the football, many for their first ever experience of Celtic Park, the people behind the Kano Foundation put in endless hours of work and commitment. Organisers run a couple of large fundraising ventures every year, alongside an annual dinner dance and matchday bucket collections.
These fundraisers, along with other individual donations, usually raise enough money to meet costs for each season. However, this year, the group paid out £20,000 for season tickets that they have been unable to use. In addition to that misfortune, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Kano Foundation have been unable to stage their usual fundraising events or collections.
The charity now desperately need to find £20,000 to allow them to renew season books for next season. A number of fundraising efforts have been taking place to answer this call and now an online raffle has been launched by The Celtic Star’s Liam Kelly.
All funds from this raffle will go towards helping the Kano Foundation keep football free for thousands of kids next season and beyond.
67 numbers are available, priced at £2 each (if you would like to make a larger donation, then that is most welcome and greatly appreciated).
The prizes are as follows:
1st – Three Celtic Books Bundle worth £42 (Our Stories & Our Songs, Take Me To Your Paradise and The Holy Grounds of Glasgow Celtic)
2nd – Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys book (Published by The Celtic Star and written by Liam Kelly, David Potter and Matt Corr.)
3rd – A4 Billy McNeill 1967 European Cup Winners Autographed Print (Professionally made in HWC Trading Store Studio)
For full details of the raffle, and to enter, please visit the PayPal Pool by clicking HERE.
If you like to buy a copy of Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys outright, then you can do so by clicking on the image below. The publication comes highly recommended and was voted into The Scotsman newspaper’s best sports books of the year for 2020.
We have very limited copies in stock so you will need to act fast to avoid disappointment.
