Premier League Inspires uses the power of football to inspire young people aged 11-to-18 to develop the skills and attitudes needed to succeed in life.
Three Year 9 pupils teamed up to deliver a pitch on how they could support Saints Foundation, to a panel comprised of senior board members at St Mary's.
The Daily Echo was invited to attend and as soon as we walked into Jack Stephens' box, where they had been rehearsing, the pupils were keen to present me their work.
The Daily Echo joins in the fun at Premier League InspiresThe Daily Echo joins in the fun at Premier League Inspires and Community Champions (Image: Saints Foundation)
Their presentation focused on gender equality and involved the design, creation and selling of eye-catching wristbands intended to get conversations started.
The pupils also pitched supporting Southampton Hospitals Charity, whose programmes include providing education to children too unwell to attend school.
“Children who are too sick still deserve an education," said one pupil, when probed on the idea by Sam Fulling, managing director of Saints Foundation.
A number of groups presented throughout the day but the Woodlands Community College group was selected as winners - earning a trip to Wembley Stadium.
Nicola Iverson, deputy head teacher at Woodlands Community College, said: "At Woodlands, we are very proud to work closely with the Saints Foundation, enabling our students to take part in fantastic inclusive projects such as Premier League Inspires.
Woodlands pupils on a tour of St Mary'sWoodlands pupils on a tour of St Mary's (Image: Saints Foundation)
"The project has positively pushed students out of their comfort zones, encouraging them to work with people they wouldn’t normally work with and requiring them to present to a panel of judges.
"These are all very important life skills that perhaps they wouldn’t have had the confidence to develop without the power of the Southampton Football Club badge."
Based in schools, Inspires Project Officers are in each school four days a week, with all Inspires schools being alternative school provision.
The team deliver a mixture of mentoring, interventions and extracurricular activities, working with young people who are referred into them based on them having risk factors for becoming disengaged with education.
After delivering their presentation, but before learning they had won first prize, the three Woodlands pupils were sent on a treasure hunt around St Mary's.
Led by Molly Pinnick, one of many brilliant community champions at Saints Foundation and a credit to the charity, they accessed all areas of the ground.
Molly Pinnick, a community champion at Saints FoundationMolly Pinnick, a community champion at Saints Foundation (Image: Saints Foundation)
The pupils saw the trophy cabinet, both changing rooms and did the walk through the tunnel out towards the hallowed turf of St Mary's.
During a mock press conference about the programme in the media room, a pupil quipped “anything to get me out of school" before labelling it "life changing".
James Campbell, secondary school engagement coordinator, said: "We have four Premier League Inspires schools, which are four alternative provisions across Southampton, as well as our Community Champions schools, which are nine mainstream secondary schools across Southampton.
"One of the biggest buy-ins that we get is because we're wearing the badge. Obviously, as a one club city, it's incredibly powerful to be wearing the badge and not being teachers, it's more like being youth workers.
"Representing Saints Foundation is huge but actually a lot of the young people across Southampton now about know the club because of the foundation. It works both ways for us but it's certainly hugely impactful that we're wearing the badge and that we can provide opportunities like this."
James Campbell, Saints Foundation's secondary school engagement coordinatorJames Campbell, Saints Foundation's secondary school engagement coordinator (Image: Emma-Lou Precious)
He added: "Premier League inspires is obviously a Premier League funded project but that doesn't mean to say that that completely covers the funding.
"Our main funders are the Premier League Charitable Fund, which provide us with a very good amount and allow us to do the work that we do, but then we also need support from extra funders and support from the schools as well.
"We've been running the project for 10 years now in schools and they see the value and have seen that consistently, so are now part-funding the project. Funding is difficult to come by, it doesn't cover the whole cost of the projects that we're doing in education."
During 2023/24, across all of their projects, Saints Foundation worked with 5,779 unique participants, a seven per cent increase on their reach the previous year.
Set for our charity matchday ❤️
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— Southampton FC (@SouthamptonFC) March 13, 2025
They reported that 4,930 of those participants achieved a positive outcome, and their projects reach every age group in society.
From Senior Saints and Saints By Your Side to Primary Stars and Saints Restart, there are guaranteed to be projects helping people that you did not even know about.
Saints Foundation helps elderly people recover from falls, delivers targeted education across every school group and reintegrates criminal offenders.
Saints Foundation are taking over this weekend's Premier League clash with Wolves as their annual charity match day - and will be visible at St Mary's.
Amongst other activities on the day, staff will be out in force around the fan zones engaging with fans and raising funds for the charity.