Established by Ian Poole, Everyone 4 Sport aims to tackle a lack of participation in sport helping to provide opportunities to those who usually wouldn’t partake. They were awarded £1,993 from the Foundation’s Coventry Building Society Small Grants.
Walking through a rock-climbing centre in Solihull, accessible and adaptable sport isn’t the first thing that springs to mind! But making the most out of the facilities for the day is Everyone 4 Sport.
“We all get into sport to find the next world champion, but this is something different. A lot of sports coaches want to focus on working with the highly talented kids and top end sport, but we’ve found this so rewarding. I feel as though there is a niche for it and we hope we can continue to provide these opportunities.
“The funding was for outdoor sessions, but we had the money so thought rather than put things back because of the weather let’s use this facility instead. The grant is really providing people with sporting opportunities. Although it’s tennis-based we just try to get everyone as active as we can.
“The group we’re working with today is a charity based locally at a working farm.
“Their disabilities cause a lot of weight issues and provide lots of barriers and they struggle socially. There are different levels of disability, but we try and adapt the exercises to suit them.
“We’ve got stuff like soft archery and curling which loads of people can get involved with. Our focus is on tennis, but we do lots of other sports to include everyone.
“The more we can put out and the more opportunities we can offer the better, they’re lovely people to work with.”
Amongst all the running, batting and bouncing we manage to get hold of Bethany, one of the day’s attendees, who was keen to have her say on the project:
“I like these sessions; I just love doing sports and find it fun. Sometimes I find it hard but I’m still working on it. Everyone looks forward to coming here!”
If you’d like to apply for funding please view our Available Grants here.