Refugees and young south Londoners see Palace in action at Selhurst Park
Last week, Palace for Life staff handed out over 300 free tickets to young south Londoners across our programmes and partners for Crystal Palace F.C.’s final pre-season game against Montpellier at Selhurst Park, to help engage our community in our work.
Over 300 tickets to Palace’s final pre-season game against Montpellier were handed out to participants on our Holiday Activities and Food programme, a programme for those on free school meals in Croydon and Bromley, as well as Ukrainian participants from our refugee sessions. Tickets were also given to those on our social mobility programme, GAME ON!, which provides young people aged between 16-24 to get into education or employment, as well as on our Chances programme, which focuses on engaging children and young people by using sport and other activities to help them reintegrate or reengage with education, employment and other positive pathways.
Mainzworld participants with their tickets at Selhurst Park
Tickets were also handed out to Palace for Life partners P4YE, Mainzworld and Legacy Youth Zone and the Bromley Children and Families Forum
All who took up the offer had the chance to watch the Eagles, nearly a week before Arsenal make the short trip to south London for the opening Premier League fixture of the 2022/2023 season, comfortably beat Montpellier in a 4-2 win; thanks to goals from Wilfried Zaha, Marc Guéhi and Odsonne Edouard (two).
The Croydon Youth Offending Service, a partner of Palace for Life, were given some tickets to give to young people.
One of the officers who gave three tickets to young people said:
‘Thank you for giving my young person (Tyler) the opportunity to attend. His mother was happy when the tickets were given to her. She said, “it’s an opportunity to do something with Tyler”. The third ticket was also used as Tyler brought along a friend, both boys were said to had a great time.
They continued:
‘So many young people pass the stadium daily but have probably never entered one so if we could facilitate that for them and their families it would be a great experience.’
South London is a hotbed of talent, and at Palace for Life we are determined to make sure that young people in our community are given every opportunity to succeed.
A huge way of doing this is using the power of Crystal Palace, Selhurst Park and the club’s excellent first-team, as a way of getting young people engaged, aware and inspired by the work done to support and improve their lives if they need the support.
This initiative supports Palace for Life’s flagship fundraising campaign, Made in South London, which aims to raise £1 million over the next three years to help us continue to transform young south London lives.
Palace for Life would also like to extend a huge thank you to our club, Crystal Palace F.C. for supplying the tickets.
If you would like to donate to the Made in South London campaign, please click here.