Manchester United Foundation has joined forces with the Children’s Book Project; a national charity whose aim is to give every child the opportunity to own their own books and develop the love of reading.
The Foundation and the Children’s Book Project share the ethos of inspiring and engaging young people from underprivileged backgrounds and offering opportunities through education and experiences that they wouldn’t otherwise receive.
Manchester United Foundation – the affiliated charity of the football club – works in partnership with over 70 secondary, primary and special educational needs schools, delivering extracurricular and mentoring programmes to support young people to make positive changes in their lives.
The Children’s Book Project believes in the power of books to support youth mental health, imagination, progression through education and allowing young people to be part of a fairer society with brighter prospects.
In 2024/25, the charity gifted over 500,000 carefully curated books to children via 658 schools and settings nationwide. For the upcoming year, and to celebrate the 2026 National Year of Reading, they aim to gift one million books in 2025/26.
By partnering with the Children’s Book Project, eligible partner schools of Manchester United Foundation, plus other local Greater Manchester schools who sign up to the initiative, will have the opportunity to receive up to £7,000 worth of books, which will be gifted to students through events across the school year. The books are carefully curated (a mix of new and pre-loved titles and reflecting all reading stages) and the initiative is fully funded, with no cost to schools or families.
The two organisations hosted an event on October 6 at Hotel Football in Manchester, supported by the National Literacy Trust, to offer further information to schools about the programme and how their pupils and families may benefit.
Liberty Venn, CEO of the Children’s Book Project, said: “We’re thrilled to launch in Greater Manchester today and to commit to gifting over 80,000 books to children across the region this year. Our ambition to make Manchester a book-rich city, so that every child can identify as a reader, aligns perfectly with Manchester United Foundation’s own ethos of helping every young person to reach their full potential. We’re incredibly grateful to them for their help in reaching so many schools today.”
John Shiels, CEO of Manchester United Foundation, said: “One of the most basic skills needed for our young people to reach their potential is to be able to read. We see so many issues around reading with the young people we work with, with some not even owning a single book of their own.
“Through working with Children’s Book Project, we’re opening up an exciting opportunity for our partner schools to access this amazing offering of free books that they can gift to their pupils. Something that they can have forever, to enjoy, to learn from. This is an initiative that will have so many benefits and, for our young people, greatly improve their life chances.”
Manchester United Foundation will also become a drop-off point for members of the public to donate books at its office on Sir Matt Busby Way, Old Trafford. Suitable books will then be collated for distribution across the Foundation’s school network and local community at book drives throughout the year.