Sunday’s Premier League fixture with Manchester United raised over £21,500 and generated significant awareness for the Community Sports Foundation’s #BuildTheNest campaign.
Fundraising initiatives on the day included a ground collection, hospitality auction and the donation of a pound from each programme sale.
The amount will now be matched by Norwich City Football Club as part of the four-month campaign to raise £1million for the second phase of the construction at The Nest.
The special-edition shirts worn by the first team during the match are currently being auctioned online and the amount raised will be added to the campaign total. Main club sponsor Dafabet kindly shared their front-of-shirt space with the campaign hashtag, which raised valuable awareness of The Nest to a global audience.
The second phase of construction will include an artificial 3G pitch that will become the new home of Norwich City Women FC, two multi-use areas that can act as classrooms or activity areas, and a café that will be used for social sessions at projects that support mental health, older people, and people with dementia.
Norwich City Football Club have pledged to match any amount raised during the four-month campaign up to a value of £500,000.
Sunday’s fundraising will take the current total to £300,000, including the match funding from the Canaries.
Ian Thornton, Chief Executive Officer of the Norwich City Community Sports Foundation thanked all those who have backed the campaign so far:
“This is the biggest project the Foundation has ever taken on and we cannot do it without the support of our Football Club, key partners and our community to get us over this final hurdle.
“We’d like to thank the Executive Committee and all of the staff at the Club, who are right behind this campaign, as well as everyone who gave a little, or a lot on Sunday.
“Finally, thank you to Dafabet for their generous gesture; to have #BuildTheNest on the front of the team’s shirts for such a high-profile fixture is greatly appreciated.
“We are really close, but still have a lot of hard work ahead of us to reach our goal and would love to hear from anyone that thinks they can support us.”
To find out more about the campaign and how you can support, visit www.thenest.org.uk and click Build The Nest.