West Ham United co-owner David Sullivan is to make a personal donation to Newham Foodbank to cover the shortfall in matchday donations.
The club's co-chairman has pledged to donate £3,500 in order to cover donations that would otherwise have been received during the five postponed home matches by fan's collective Irons Supporting Foodbanks.
Generous Sullivan has pledged to support iFoodbanks and the Merseyside PPE Hub
iFoodbanks founder John Ratomski told KUMB: "We were collecting an average of £700 in food and cash donations for the foodbank before our recent home matches.
"After lockdown and the cancellation of the remaining five games we would have been about £3,500 short in our donations. After reading about the shortfall Mr Sullivan has kindly stepped in to personally cover this amount.
"Both we and Newham Foodbank are delighted with this contribution. We’ve had steady support from the club since we started five months ago and this donation is a further sign of the club’s support of those in need in the Newham community."
Dave Kelly from the national Fans Supporting Foodbanks group added: "We’re absolutely delighted to be working in collaboration with fans from across the whole country."
In a further gesture, Mr Sullivan is donating £1,500 to the Merseyside PPE Hub who manufactured the 1,000 PPE visors distributed last week to the Barts Health NHS Trust hospitals, Spire London East Hospital, Brentwood Community Hospital and Barking Hospital.
Newham Council and Aspire Community also received visors for their care homes and other frontline staff.
John Ratomski, founder of Irons Supporting Foodbanks, thanked Sullivan for his contribution
John Parry, manager of the PPE Hub commented: "This is an unbelievable sign of fan solidarity. It doesn’t matter what the team colours, in the current pandemic PPE doesn’t wear colours and we at Merseyside PPE are happy to support our friends at West Ham and are so grateful of their kind donations."
This donation will provide for raw materials to make over 2,100 PPE visors for further distribution. Ratomski added: "This additional generosity will make an extraordinary difference to a great many lives."
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