You did this

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Your Celtic FC Foundation, Christmas Appeal, raised an incredible £310k this year, a record figure that allowed the spirit of Celtic to touch more lives than ever before.

The largest slice of the funds, £129k, was shared between 645 families with children in Scotland and Ireland.

Five different homeless charities received £54.5k.

Eight children’s charities received £43k.

£20k went to women’s aid charities.

£15k went to three refugee charities.

£10k went to 100 vulnerable elderly people living near Celtic Park, in what remains an impoverished part of the city.

A Christmas meal, gifts and outings for families were provided to those in the Glasgow East Women’s Aid refuge.

The Scottish refugee Council, which supports over 650 families, said, “The support of Celtic FC Foundation has helped hundreds of vulnerable families at a time of real need.

“In a single day, our advisors will support people who have become homeless, help parents who have no winter clothes for their children, and assist vulnerable families who are struggling through a complex legal system. The need for our services is greater than ever, and this winter we will struggle to support so many families without help.”

Glasgow City Mission provide a hot meal to an average of 130 men and women each night, and offer a safe space in their day.  The ‘Mission said, “This wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of organisations such as Celtic FC Foundation. We would like to express our sincere thanks to all of your supporters who have contributed to the Christmas Appeal.”

Loaves and Fishes provide hot meals at a café in Glasgow and foodbank services in Glasgow and East Kilbride.  “Through the provision of the meals that we offer at the Oasis Cafe, we try to make people feel welcome and respected. They’re given a two-course meal and an opportunity to sit at a table with each other and enjoy their dinner in a way that most of us take for granted.

“This is a truly vital lifeline to those who are out there with little or no access to food.”

Jim White, Secretary of The Wayside Club, which provides daily support advice and comfort to Glasgow’s homeless, said: “We owe a great deal of gratitude over the years to Celtic FC Foundation and especially their Christmas Appeal, which has helped so many individuals that come to our door each night, looking for clean clothes and a hot meal.”

The Invisibles provide sleeping bags, clothing and footwear to those living rough.  They encounter people wet, freezing and in need of a change of clothes.  Dermot Hill said, “The backing we receive through the Foundation’s Christmas Appeal plays a vital role in ensuring that we stay well stocked throughout this very difficult period.”

The Glasgow Night Shelter supports asylum seekers who cannot access statutory homelessness services due to their immigration status.  Foundation support allowed them to extend their opening hours over the festive period.  The Refugee Survival Trust were helped to provide bus passes, which allows people to build friendships.

The Elpis Centre, who provide for homeless young women and Spirit Aid similarly received  support.  For some kids, as well as toys, winter coats, wellies, shoes and school uniforms were provided.

This list goes on, literally for pages.  If you stopped to put money in a bucket, bid at an auction, raised sponsorship at a sleep out, bought a candle for Light Up the Clover, or participated in this work in any way, you will never know the full impact you have made.

It is hard to get your head around big numbers, but £310k is a phenomenal figure.  It compares to anything achieved by any football club in the world.  Through this work, Celtic fans are changing the world in a structured way.  The Foundation are careful with your money, its impact is measured and subsequent support is earned.

We live in a world that is very different from 1887, when Brother Walfrid and his parishioners decided that “a football club will be formed for the maintenance of dinner tables for the children and unemployed.”  Then, the overwhelming majority of our community lived in abject poverty.  Now, most of us will fill our bellies tomorrow and sleep in a warm home.  But if this football club means anything to you, you will feel solidarity with those who fled to this country to seek a better life, those struggling to bring up kids and keep work and other plates spinning, those who are ill, without work, or those, who for a variety of circumstances, are without home, family and hope.

There but for the grace of God…  It can take very little to go wrong with our plans for our world to crash down.

The work of the Foundation is our proudest boast.  In 2019, more of us got this message and wanted to get involved.  We are part of a story that is 132 years old, that stretches back to a generation, some of whom fled famine and persecution but discovered the first step on the ladder involved squalor, hunger and cold.  Others have no link whatsoever to that story, but found their way to Celtic through common values.

And guess what?  We get to do it all again in 2020; our Celtic work never ends.  Thanks to everyone who ‘gets it’, you’re just brilliant.

Take care and have a great Christmas!

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349 Comments

  1. Merry Christmas to all in the Celtic family.

     

     

    A special shout out to any of our own who are ill, or without family and friends at this time of year.

     

     

    Thanks to Paul67 for providing this great blog where many a friendship that would never have been made has flourished.

     

     

    Finally good luck PADDYMACOZ for your surgery. Basic plumbing for these guys nowadays, I’m sure it will go fine and get well soon!

  2. Best wishes to all on here this Christmas and many thanks to PAUL67 for providing a platform that does so much good.

     

     

    I have met many CQN’ers through this site, by going to a game with them, playing golf or just a blether and a bevvy. Thanks to them too for putting up with me.

     

     

    Ye canny beat it!

  3. The Celtic Foundation and the support of the fans is increasingly wonderful and grows year on year, This is a real link with the charitable origins of our club and is a real feel good story. The recent Election result will see even more pressure being placed on Welfare and Poverty growing. The state will not provide for Disabled and Poor families in the future and Charities will need to provide a little comfort to those who need support

     

     

    Lambert 14

     

     

    I hope your rude post to Paul’s blog on the day of a good news story will be your last post on this site.

     

    If you decide to continue to post and troll on this site than I won’t know as I will scroll on by any time I see your name

  4. Paul67 et al

     

     

    Great work once again from the Celtic Foundation, a reminder that charity is still part of the ethos of our great club. Hope too. Mention also the works of the Celtic Trust/Kano Foundation, the Green Brigade and Celtic supporters from far and wide. Or in short, Celtic Forever.

     

     

    Hail Hail to All

  5. To anyone who feels I was being derogatory..tough. Grow up and get real.

     

    Everything I said is factual.

     

    How Paul 67 can go from having a campaign calling out years of cheating to his current stance is a disgrace.

     

    What exactly do you think ‘taking the soup’ is?

     

    Do you remember all Paul’s headers on the cheating that went on and wanting justice?

     

    Do you remember his slogan on this site about ‘persistence beating resistance’?

     

    Then silence….then months later his disgraceful attack on fans who questioned the board because of their res 12 stance.

     

    Why do you think Paul is mocked on other sites because of his ‘if someone kicks Lawwell on the arse cheeks he will hurt Pauls tongue’ board brown nosing?

     

    Does it mean that Paul was lying to the fans all this time about wanting rights wronged?

     

    Why the sudden sea change?

     

    Would calling him an Uncle Tom have been more accurate?

     

    Remember that Paul called out the people who he originally supported only recently.

     

    Paul 67…you did this

  6. mcnut

     

     

    please itemise the fines, the amounts and exactly who was responsible

     

    please itemise the camouflaged good deeds – times & places please

     

     

    remember for some that politics is life, 24 hours, home and away – no camouflage desired or required

  7. SFTB

     

     

    A clever post….except its only 2020 in one cultural calender; western self styled civilisation may regard it as 2020 but are just really making a varifocal spectacle of themselves.

     

     

    The rest of the ISME generation (Intelligent Species My Erse) of which I am the founding and only member live on the dream that rather than vision being clear and focussed, we really need a bit more of Mizzi Gaynor, South Pacific and rampant cockeyed optimism.

     

     

    Have a cracker.😁😁

     

     

    Hail hail

     

     

    Matt

  8. Paul67

     

     

    Very very humbling, a credit to everyone Celtic.

     

     

    Hoping everyone has a peaceful Christmas and a healthy happy New Year.

     

    All I want for Christmas is 6 valuable points.

     

     

    Best wishes to all

     

     

    KINGLuBO

  9. The number of ‘beggars’ in streets of Glasgow city centre does seem to be increasing. Why? Who are they? Are they ‘local’? Did they just come to Glasgow to beg?

  10. Lambert14

     

     

    Seasons greetings to you. Now off you pop to your favorite sites. Not a day to be spewing bile.

     

     

    HH to all the fine folks on here that I have had the pleasure of reading for the last 15 years or so.

     

     

    Merry Christmas!

  11. Jobo

     

     

    Now in Shipbank..will check emails as soon as the lassie wae the marvelous shadow stops wafting her magic all over my pint.

     

     

    Or possibly the lassie wae the magical marvel stops waving her shadow all over my pint….or ….something…😁

     

     

    Be with you shortly.

     

     

    Hail hail

     

     

    Matt

  12. SPIKEYSAULDMAN@ 15:17

     

     

    HI, I’m sure if you Google ‘Celtic fined by UEFA’, you’ll get it all detailed. The €500k figure was confirmed at the AGM.

     

     

    These ‘good deeds’ are not camouflaged, indeed they are very publicly announced and are used in a cynical attempt to mitigate selfish behaviour that embarrasses & damages our club.

     

     

    Hail Hail & a Merry Christmas to you.

  13. So someone has just put Al Jolson singing “mammy” on the Juke Box….and then said…”He didn’t wear make up in this one”

     

     

    Hail hail

     

     

    Matt

  14. 67 European Cup Winners on

    LAMBERT14 on 24TH DECEMBER 2019 12:04 PM

     

    Oh come on – sort your life out – what a pathetic message at this time of year

     

    I am no Happy Clapper and I too have had one or two little issues with Paul67

     

     

    But your comments today of all days are not expected from a Celtic Supporter – very poor

     

     

    The effort and dedication it takes to keep this Blog at the front of all news regarding Celtic is nothing short of heroic

     

     

    Do I agree with everything written by Paul67 – no not really

     

    Do I respect the work, views and opinions of Paul67 – absolutely

     

     

    My message to Paul67 is, have a great Christmas have glad tidings with your family and ignore the view @ 12.04

     

     

    67ECW

  15. Hope all posters and lurkers alike have a lovely Christmas

     

     

    Paul67 cheers for this place, ridiculed by a few, greatly appreciated by far many more

     

     

    Melbourne Mick, Paddy is in my thoughts hope he makes a full recovery and back keeping you in check

     

     

    6pts between now and Sunday and our wee trolls will be like snow disappearing off a dyke :-)

     

     

    Hail Hail to one and all 🍀

  16. Happy Christmas to all CQN’ers and to all Celtic Fans worldwide, I hope great ghuys like Hamilton Tim , Starry Plough, ACGR , my good pal kikinthenakas & so many more, Weet Weet Weet etc are having a lurk & know they are not forgotten.

     

    A prayer for all the great Celts who graced these pages but are gone to their eternal reward, I remember Miki67, Devonshire Bhoy, El Diego Bhoy, Murdoch Auld & Hay & so many more.

     

    Their bravery and their continued love for Celtic as they faced their final days was both inspirational & humbling.

     

    God Bless them all.

  17. Matt

     

     

    If you are working off the Gregorian calendar or some other timescale, they may not have invented Sweetex yet.

     

     

    Might as well give up on your quest and stay seated next to the shadow.

     

     

    I’m off out for family cocktails now. The only cocktails I knew growing up were Lager & Lime and a Black & Tan. I could get easily confused.

     

     

    What order should you take it?

     

     

    Salt before tequila?

     

     

    Tequila before lime?

     

     

    Tequila before falling down with the legs becoming drunk first?

  18. 67 EUROPEAN CUP WINNERS on 24TH DECEMBER 2019 3:58 PM

     

    I should’t have said the part about Paul’s nose may be hurt.

     

    Apologies for that.

     

    However when Paul comes out with the heading ‘you did this’

     

    then I think it’s only right and fair to bring up what I think is his total betrayal especially as he done a full 360 degree turn on the issue.

  19. It’s important to remember at this time of year to get that last dig in and twist the knife into those who . . . Ach, you know what, Merry Christmas to the good ship CQN and all who sail her, even the barnacles.

     

     

    T

  20. ‘Now’s the season to feel merry” well, for some of us. Cannot please everyone.

     

    Anyway Paul 67 thanks for the blog that I’ve enjoyed over the years hope to continue reading for the next few years.

     

    Best wishes for a very Merry Christmas and best wishes to all the Celtic family all over the world

     

    HH

  21. Absolutely brilliant achievement Paul, to raise that much for those in need. Well done to all of you who think of others and are helping people’s lives in a real way. It’s especially good to see the money distributed as widely as possible to different organisations but also remembering the local community who live around Celtic Park. Let’s see if any journalist picks up on this story and…………….if it was a rugby club frae Corstorphine they would all be getting MBE’s already.

  22. Everyone enjoy xmas & if you are so inclined to dig someone up about previous articles start ur own feckin blog.

     

     

    HH & away to watch some footie recordings

  23. Paul and family have a holly, jolly, Christmas and a healthy’20. Once again thanks for the blog and the great charity work, it’s awesome.

  24. weebobbycollins on

    “…It can take very little to go wrong with our plans for our world to crash down.”

     

    Indeed!

     

    Well done to the Foundation!

  25. Adi – enjoy your footie recordings, I hope they are Hunskelping vids.😂

     

     

    Have a nice time.

     

     

    D. :)

  26. Paul 67 all the best to you and your family this Christmas….best wishes to all CQNers and lurkers.

     

    God bless HH