Rebook founder launches Berkshire-based campaign to raise money for schools

Joe Foster, the founder of sportswear giant Reebok, has launched a Berkshire-based Letslocalise #RaisingAMillion campaign, to raise money to help state schools in the county and country meet increasingly basic needs after school budgets dropped to 2010 levels in real terms.

Now the Chairperson of Wokingham-based digital and social innovation platform Letslocalise, Joe is using his time, contacts and business know-how to lead the campaign in an effort to help one million UK schoolchildren.

In the face of schools considering three-day weeks in response to rising energy bills and other costs, the #RaisingAMillion campaign is asking individuals, communities and businesses to help state schools meet their resourcing needs this year.

Having already supported 20 states schools across Berkshire, such as Theale Green, The Forest School, John Madjeski Academy and Thameside Primary School, Letslocalise hope this new campaign will help it continue to provide vital resources, as national government support is lacking.

Joe Foster said: “While I came from a humble background and only started my formal education at ten because schools weren’t operating as normal in Bolton due to the second world war, I immediately valued my education - especially when I went to technical college at 13 to study engineering. 

“This training was invaluable and enabled myself and my brother to set up our own shoemaking factory when I was just 23 years old and set me on the path as a business owner and founder of Reebok. 

“The pandemic has unleashed an unprecedented crisis and triggered the biggest learning emergency in current times. We know Berkshire schools today are dealing with incredible challenges, from the pandemic to soaring costs. 

“With LetsLocalise and my wife Julie, the #RaisingAMillion campaign will support state schools across the county and nationwide to help give schools and 1 million schoolchildren the resources they need to enhance their learning experience and transform their futures – just as I did.” 

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Funds raised from #RaisingAMillion will go straight towards state schools on LetsLocalise including the 20 it has already supported in Berkshire to bridge the gap that school underfunding and rising costs have created.

The funds will focus on five categories: school meals, literacy, STEM education, music and sports.

Since establishment in 2018, LetsLocalise has become a “digital village” of schools, local communities and businesses working towards a collective goal of providing students with better resources and opportunities, along with transparency on where donated funds will go.

Businesses already working with the platform to supply financial donations, match-funding or direct resources include Legal & General, Cognizant, Verizon, the Ocado Group, L’Oreal and Three.

Wokingham-based LetsLocalise Founders, Divya Garg and Gaurav Garg, said: “We’re seeing a growing crisis in state schools across Berkshire as headteachers and staff struggle to provide sufficient resources of even the most basic items due to real-term budget cuts and rocketing costs which is creating an influx in demand.

“Schools are already at risk of running a deficit with parts of their budget already overstretched - and the increase in energy costs means current budgets will struggle even further to cover this worrying, ever-rising expenditure.

“The obvious knock-on of a great share of budgets having to be spent on utilities is that state schools, who are already considerably underfunded and overstretched will now have even less budget available to spend on key educational resources. 

“While we welcome the news announced by the new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, of the new six month energy scheme for all non-domestic energy users including schools, the underfunding crisis runs much further and goes back decades.

“With a new Government in place, this presents a great opportunity to put schools top of their agenda and to give schools the much urgent financial support they need to try and head off this growing crisis.

“Our mission is to continue to work with schools nationwide so that while every headteacher is trying to sleep at night and facing these unprecedented challenges, money from #RaisingAMillion will be trickling into their school’s bank account so they can buy the essential resources they’ve requested when they wake up.”

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