The whole of West Ham United coming together to help the community is at the essence of the Players’ Project, according to defender Aaron Cresswell.
Speaking on Wednesday at the one-year anniversary of the Project – West Ham’s dedicated programme which involves every member of the first-team, Academy and women’s squads in eleven different strands of community support – the 29-year-old left-back was full of pride in the initiative’s power to make change happen.
Cresswell himself has been heavily involved with the Poverty strand of the Project, last festive season serving Christmas dinner to Newham-based families who might otherwise have struggled to make ends meet.
“It’s good that West Ham have highlighted this, and not just poverty, there’s a lot of other projects that we’re involved in,” Cresswell said.
“We were just reading the stats before and there’s 170,000 people potentially homeless currently in poverty. We’ve set up a little task today with kids coming in to help our foodbanks – they’ve got to create meals for three or four days to help people survive.
“It’s good that West Ham have highlighted it, and not just poverty. There’s a lot of other projects that we’re involved in. To help kids to understand it also, it’s a great cause.
“There’s the first-team here, the women’s team [and the Academy], and everyone’s pulling together. If we can all pull in the right direction, we’ll make a change.”
West Ham United this week announced that, just one year into the Players’ Project, £5m of this £10m has already been invested in local projects, taking the total to £18m.
The Club plans to increase its commitment over the next two seasons and will invest a further £10m, for a forecasted investment of £28m by the end of 2021.
You can read more about the one-year celebration of the event here.