Foxes Get Involved With Tree Week!
The Club's charitable arm works closely with Griffydam on the Forest Foxes programme, and to celebrate tree week, they invited first team star Albrighton and Academy graduate Braybrooke to engage with 20 children in a number of activities such as planting trees, making fox faces with fallen leaves, and building woodland crowns.
The event was hosted by the Tree Council to mark the start of the annual tree planting season, with the aim of educating people on the role that they play in our world as part of Leicester City in the Community’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy.
The school itself has a designated Forest school leader who is trained to deliver bespoke outdoor learning across the school, and Albrighton was happy to be part of the day’s teaching.
“For the kids to be doing it so young, it’s fantastic,” the midfielder explained. “It gets them outside and in this environment, which is brilliant, rather than being in a classroom all day every day.
“I think it’s important to learn as this age. I probably didn’t get the education on this subject when I was this young. I’m only getting it know through different forms of media now so for these kids to be given the best possible teaching, it’s fantastic for them and I’m sure it’s something they’ll take with them throughout their lives.”
Development Squad midfielder Braybrooke also attended the National Forest programme, adding: “I enjoyed the tree planting! It will be exciting to see what it looks like in a few years.
“If I was a school kid, I’d be excited if a professional footballer came in, because that’s who you look up to. Maybe they go and watch every week, so it’s good to be around them and see that they’re having fun.
“You’ve got to start educating kids about nature and how important it is. It keeps the world alive so starting them young and getting them to learn about it will be helpful and then each generation that follows will learn – it’s good for the future.”
Dr. Alex Evans who is the Environmental Sustainability Coordinator at Leicester City in the Community, was in attendance and was pleased to see the professional footballers get involved with the sustainability project.
He said: “It’s been fantastic to see Marc and Sammy get stuck in, digging holes, planting trees and helping the young children – it’s been fantastic, not just for the kids but the players as well.”
Leicester City in the Community would like to thank the Eden Tree Care in Newbold, Coleorton, who provided the school with free bark and mulch for the fire circle and stumps for the children to sit on.
To watch the events of the day, click HERE.