ADT is sponsoring Reading Football Club’s (RFC) community initiative, the ‘Royals Roadshow’, which combines fire safety education with football training.
The roadshow aims to teach primary school children in the area about the dangers of arson, which costs the education sector millions of pounds every year.
Every week RFC’s Community department will visit a school in the area. The roadshow will provide football coaching and the opportunity to meet a first team Reading player. The children will also take part in a fire safety session presented by ADT and the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service. The roadshow launched on 14 September and will visit more than 1,000 schoolchildren by Christmas.
What they say
Neil Harrington, General Manager of ADT’s Thames Valley branch, said: "We are very pleased to be supporting Reading Football Club’s work in the community and we feel that the ‘Royals Roadshow’ is a great way to promote fire safety within schools. This is a major issue, with school fires costing over £100m a year, the same cost as building 45 new primary schools. Football is a fantastic platform to help educate children about the dangers of fire because it helps to gain their attention and promotes an interest in healthy activities rather than anti-social behaviour such as arson."
RFC’s Community Scheme Manager, Lee Herron, is looking forward to taking his team of community officers into the schools, saying: "The roadshow should be an enjoyable day for the children, but as it will also have a strong educational value, we are looking forward to the opportunity of using football as a vehicle for spreading a positive message across the community. If the roadshow is successful, next year it could be extended further afield to areas such as Maidenhead, Newbury, Basingstoke and Slough."
