The Aston Villa Foundation celebrated the Premier League’s ‘More Than A Game’ campaign at Saturday’s fixture against Nottingham Forest.
The initiative gives club community organisations across all levels of football the opportunity to highlight their crucial work, with staff from the Foundation based across Villa Park at the weekend.
Activities from several projects werre on display in the Fun Zone while the Foundation’s new catering van project, Kerbside Cobs, made it’s matchday debut at the Holte End.
The project, delivered in collaboration with Socios.com Supports and Digbeth Dining Club CIC, sees the transformation of a former crime scene investigation van into a fully-operational catering van providing culinary education to communities in Birmingham.
During half-time, the Foundation were pleased to announce Villa Vision project manager Nikhil Sonpal has been named as the club’s Community Captain.
Villa Vision is led by the Aston Villa Foundation in collaboration with Aston University, with funding from the University, Premier League, Professional Footballers’ Association and EssilorLuxottica’s charitable Foundation OneSight.
Designed and delivered by the Aston Villa Foundation’s dedicated eyecare team, Villa Vision helps raise awareness of the importance of eye health for both children and adults within the local communities of Birmingham.
Nikhil has been chosen as Aston Villa’s Community Captain due to his dedication to the Foundation’s Villa Vision project, for which he has been the optometrist and project manager since its inception in 2020. The programme has engaged in over 12,000 individual interventions in over 60 schools across Birmingham, delivering educational workshops, vision and colour vision screening and eye testing in our state-of-the-art mobile eye care unit.
TV presenter and Foundation ambassador Adil Ray was pitchside to present the award, with Aston Villa captain John McGinn meeting Nikhil post-match to discuss the importance of the project.
Reflecting upon the experience, Nik shared: “I am completley blown away and honoured to have received the Community Captain award for Aston Villa, it was something I did not expect. The reason I do the work I do is to make a difference within the local communities around Villa Park. Thank you to everyone invovled for making this happen.”
Head of Foundation and Community Guy Rippon added: “We are delighted to have awarded Nikhil with the Premier League’s Community Captain Award, recognising the hard work and dedication he has shown to the project.
“Villa Vision is a unique project that people would not expect to be delivered by a football club. Nikhil has taken an idea and developed the project into something innovative, working with thousands of children in primary and secondary schools in Birmingham to promote positive attitudes towards eye health in children and adults. Congratulations to Nikhil for winning the award and thank you for the work and dedication he has put into the project.”
Fans can still contribute to a number of Foundation events and activations occurring in the coming weeks, including our Children’s Book Project Book Drive, with the final day for donations on Wednesday, February 28.
