West Ham United’s Michail Antonio, Divin Mubama, Conor Coventry and George Earthy visited Rainham Village School's Healthy Hammers as part of the Players’ Project programme.
The four Hammers spent the afternoon at the primary school, taking part in a Q&A session and managing a mini football match, before posing for photos and signing autographs.
The West Ham United Foundation's Holiday Activities and Food programmes are delivered during the school holidays. The programme gives children the opportunity to access funded fun activities as well as a nutritious healthy meal.
After an action-packed afternoon, Antonio revealed the importance of community work at West Ham.
“The community work is massive for us,” he began. “Professional footballers were all kids once, so it was great to come here and meet the children today. They got to see the kind of lifestyle that we live and the healthy foods that we eat. It’s really important and hopefully it will help to shape them into better people as they get older.
“It’s always great to give back to the community, especially with how things are right now with inflation and electricity bills. It was great to put a smile on the kids’ faces. Hopefully they had a great day.”
Mubama also highlighted the importance of community work and suggested that professional footballers have a duty to give back to the local area.
He said: “The kids have been working on a healthy lifestyle and they asked us lots of questions on how we achieve that. They were creative with their questions and it was a really good day.
“It has been a great opportunity for the kids and hopefully this is something that they’ll remember for a long time. As professional footballers we have a lot of time and giving back to the community is the least that we can do.”
HAF Havering Manager Elvan Dixon was keen to state the importance of the programme, and the positive impact that it will have on the children.
“It was a fantastic opportunity for the children today,” Dixon smiled. “West Ham have been fantastic and delivered one of our HAF programmes today in one of the more deprived areas in this borough.
“It was a really great opportunity because so many of the kids are West Ham fans. This programme is for vulnerable families so it was great to see the players act as such good role models. They’ve given the children so much inspiration.”
West Ham United's Players' Project is the most ambitious and integrated community programme ever created by a Premier League Club, with Men’s, Women’s and Academy players giving their time to work with people in the local community.
