The Cornish Pirates are planning further initiatives with the ‘Growing Links’ charity after a successful campaign in December.

The Championship club launched a ‘Reverse Advent Calendar’ to support the food charity and it proved a major success.

Every day from the December 1 to Christmas Day a range of tinned and non-perishable food items were donated by players, staff and sponsors/local businesses, to help provide, through the ‘Growing Links’ charity, thousands of meals to families and individuals experiencing financial hardship in the area.

The initiative followed the Growing Links and Cornish Pirates partnership that was announced earlier this season.

Lauren Smith, Growing Links’ office manager, said: “At Growing Links, we rely solely on the donations and generosity of our volunteers and supporters, so our partnership with the Cornish Pirates has provided a wonderful opportunity to engage with a new part of our community.  

“The Reverse Advent Calendar the Pirates created through December helped massively to revitalise our community food store and supplied us with so many items to provide thousands of meals to our families experiencing financial hardship. Such support and that from other local businesses who took part in the initiative was truly incredible. 

“We really appreciated every single person who responded and now look forward to growing our partnership with the Cornish Pirates and their supporters as we move forward into 2023.” 

Rebecca Thomas, CEO of Cornish Pirates added: “Following the partnership with Growing Links and the ever-increasing economic crisis being faced by so many local families I wanted to be able to extend our support of the amazing work carried out by them further than our match day collections.  

“The Reverse Advent Calendar was a huge success thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, local businesses, staff, players and supporters.  Thank you to each and every one that contributed and helped to make a difference. 

“We look forward to working on further initiatives during 2023 with Growing Links to help support the local community.”