How PNE scored a winner with the EFL for community project

A Preston North End community project to distribute fruit and water to 3,000 Muslims fasting during Ramadan has scooped an EFL award.
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Preston North End Community and Education Trust’s [PNECET] ‘PR1-Community’ Ramadan project from April 2021 won the Community Project of the Season for the Championship at the EFL Awards.

The PR1-Community project saw the Trust engage with more than 3,000 people last year by distributing Iftar packs – containing fresh fruit, water and dates – to local Muslim residents in Deepdale.

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During Ramadan, known as the festival of sacrifice, Muslims fast – abstaining from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset throughout the month – with Iftar packs distributed to show support to those were fasting.

More than 3,000 Iftar packs were distributed as part of the initiative, and an additional 1,000 celebratory South Asian sweet packs were delivered during Eid-al-Fitr, a celebration that occurs following the conclusion of Ramadan.

The club is described as having ‘won judges over with its innovative project supporting members of its local community marking Ramadan and Eid.’

The initiative was delivered by PNECET alongside Preston North End Football Club, Preston United Youth Development programme, the Community Gateway Association, the KGN Food Store and Preston City Council.

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Deepdale councillors Zafar Coupland, Siraz Natha and Ismail Bax, Lancashire County Councillor Frank de Molfetta were also involved in the delivery of the project.

PNECET Chief Executive Tom Drake said: "It is thanks to the incredible work of our partners and staff, as well as our partnership with the football club, that this success was possible.

“It is appropriate that we now begin what we hope will be another vastly successful Ramadan project, through which we hope to go a step further by engaging with even more

people from our local community by handing out traditional goods from three different locations in Preston.”

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The Trust will be formally presented as winners for the Championship at an EFL Community Awards event at the Houses of Commons later this month, alongside the other divisional winners of the award for League One and Two, and in the company of project participants, staff and volunteers from each Club Community Organisation considered instrumental in delivering this commendable work.

An overall winner will be announced at the EFL Awards night in London on Sunday April 24.

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