What is Kitmas?
Kitmas is a Kickstarter project created by Paul Watson, a former international manager of Pohnpei state and the current co-star of football podcast, the Sweeper Podcast.
The Kitmas charity unofficially started in 2020 after Paul donated a few extra football shirts to a local foodbank. The foodbank was very grateful for his donation and asked if he had any more shirts to donate to other struggling families. After hearing this, Paul reached out to social media for help, asking the public to send any unwanted football shirts.
Paul’s message on social media gained a lot of attention, with a notable amount of people willing to donate their spare shirts. Pouncing on the opportunity, Paul decided to officially start his charity, focusing on delivering international football shirts to families who needed them in the runup up to Christmas.
From that point onward, Paul has collaborated with 25 community centres across the UK, helping to easy some of the burden on disadvantaged families while keeping children passionate about football.
Speaking to Paul about the meaning of a football shirt, he said: “For me football shirts are a statement of identity, so it’s a real shame that football has got to a point where families are being priced out.
“Kids nowadays don’t have the opportunity to wear the shirts of their team or any other team. In a way they are being told that the game is not for them.”
The journey of Kitmas
Since its creation, Kitmas has been featured on Sky News, the BBC, the Independent and the Evening Standard. It has also been endorsed by numerous celebrities including Gary Lineker, James Cordon and Mark Watson, who happens to be Paul’s brother.
Throughout its lifespan, the charity has inspired similar institutions worldwide. With the Canadians starting a charity called the Soccer Snobs and the Australians creating Kit Aid Australia.
Kitmas also works a lot with grassroots football clubs and has even been supported by more well-known clubs such as Bristol city and Exeter city.
Paul is now working towards turning Kitmas into a CIC (a community interest company) to gain wider recognition from bigger organisations and football clubs to help as many families as he can.
The rising number of struggling families during Christmas
Statistics featured on the Family Action website, a charity that supports deprived families, suggest that one in six parents cannot afford a present for their child this Christmas.
Furthermore, research into poverty sourced by parliament suggests that 18% of the UK population live in what they described as ‘absolute poverty’.
When faced with these statistics, Paul said: “It’s a horrible situation now for parents, they’re having to pick between heating their house or buying their children Christmas presents. Especially with how expensive football shirts are, the prices are insane, they have gone up way beyond what inflation should be doing to them.”
At the end of my interview with Paul, he recounted a story where an anonymous child from one of the community centres he works with received a football shirt from Kitmas. It was a Barcelona FC shirt, his favourite team. The child was so shocked with his gift that he persistently tried to give the shirt back as he could not comprehend that he could own his own football shirt.
How to support disadvantaged families over Christmas
There are multiple ways you can support disadvantaged families leading up to Christmas.
You can support Kitmas by either donating football shirts, donating money to be used to buy football shirts or crowdfunding for donations. Information can be found on Kitmas’ page.
You can also give support to Family Action by donating a one-off or a monthly fee which could be used to support families the whole year around. Donations can be made here.
