During the Easter holidays, McDonald’s hosted a series of Fun Football and Happy Readers events across the UK, hosted by footballing heroes including Liverpool centre-back, Virgil van Dijk and Aston Villa’s leading goal scorer of the season, Ollie Watkins. Each event saw local children jump into special Fun Football coaching sessions, before settling down to a read-along of a Little People BIG DREAMS book in the Happy Readers library.
The football legends helped give away thousands of books and footballs in each location to visiting families throughout the day, as well as donating a further 5,000 books to their chosen local charity, including Skylarks in Birmingham, Displaced People in Action in Cardiff and Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool.
The exclusive events took place to spotlight the importance of both reading and sport for kids development and McDonald’s ongoing commitment to supporting communities and families across UK & Ireland, with the distribution of over 10m books through the Happy Readers programme and the provision of over 2m hours of free Fun Football sessions a year.
Virgil van Dijk said: “Liverpool is a special place and I love being able to give back to the community that supports us so passionately. Like McDonald’s, I am a strong believer that every child should have the chance to learn and play and it is a topic that is close to me and my family which is why I am here today.
“McDonald’s is helping families by offering them more opportunities to access free books and free Fun Football coaching. Today alone we gave out over 3,000 books to children and, from what I saw on the pitch and in the reading area, we may have a few budding authors and footballing superstars in the making.”
Michelle Graham-Clare, Chief Marketing Officer at McDonald’s UK and Ireland, said: “Our mission is to ensure all children, no matter their circumstance or background, can enjoy reading AND football. 2023 sees two of our priority programmes - Fun Football and Happy Readers - come together for the first time. We want to unite children with differing interests and show that both reading and sports can be enjoyed together, by all children. We’re committed to providing families with free access to both, necessary now more than ever, and we look forward to bringing more exciting Happy Readers and Fun Football events to communities across the UK over the course of the year.”
Jonathan Douglas CBE, Chief Executive of the National Literacy Trust said: “We’re excited to see McDonald’s bringing together both books and football for this series of fantastic events. At the National Literacy Trust, we know how powerful it can be to use a child’s passion for sports to motivate and inspire them to improve their literacy skills. As this new research shows, keeping active and reading are both important for a child’s happiness and development, and don’t have to be mutually exclusive. It’s also encouraging to see inspirational sports stars reiterating the importance of reading whilst staying active.”
To find out more about the Happy Readers and Fun Football programmes, visit www.mcdonalds.co.uk/family
