Morton in the Community Birthday Celebrations

Morton in the Community, the charitable arm of Greenock Morton Football Club, officially turns five years old on 31 March – and a week of exciting activities planned to celebrate that milestone birthday begins tomorrow.

Over the space of the next seven days, a variety of events will be showcased via social media, www.gmfc.net, and www.mortoncommunity.net with everyone encouraged to participate.

Since the inception of Morton in the Community in March 2013, the team have been committed to the mission statement of being ‘The Heartbeat of Inverclyde’.

They use football and Greenock Morton as the hook to engage our community in Inverclyde to impact and change lives for the better.

The four key areas of focus are:

• To encourage mass participation and enjoyment in sport.
• To develop creative educational programmes.
• To develop employability programmes with special engagement with those furthest from the labour market.
• To tackle health inequalities through health and wellbeing projects.

They are currently delivering 22 projects and, within a typical month, see approximately 7,800 engagements with participants across these four focus areas. This equates to around 1,400 unique people on a weekly basis.

Finally, their team of eight full-time, three part-time, 10 sessional workers, and over 80 volunteers has delivered 65,000 sessions with people from all walks of life and all ages, from 18 months to 99 years.

Brian McLaughlin, development manager, said: “It gives me great pleasure to attend work on a daily basis and watch our amazing team of staff, coaches, and volunteers positively impact people lives across Inverclyde.

“Over the last five years we have seen considerable growth within Inverclyde, and I truly believe through a variety of innovative programmes we really are ‘The Heartbeat of Inverclyde’.

Gordon McKillop, operations manager, said: “I’ve had the enormous privilege of working with the Inverclyde community using Greenock Morton FC as the engagement tool for almost four years.

“Before working with Morton in the Community, I underestimated the reach and impact a football club has. Football clubs across Europe are now changing lives and I’m proud Greenock Morton is a benchmark.”

This week’s events include:

Social media polls and stories
Ticket giveaways
Community Day at Saturday’s home league fixture against Dundee United
5th Birthday Charity Dinner

Keep your eyes on http://mortoncommunity.net/, https://www.facebook.com/MortonCommunity/, https://twitter.com/MortonCommunity and the football club’s official media and social media channels for more details through the week.