İlkay Gündoğan donates Turkish feast!

Over one hundred people supported by Community Integrated Care were delighted to receive a Turkish feast, ahead of Saturday’s Championships League Final, from Captain of Manchester City FC and one of our charity’s Ambassadors, İlkay Gündoğan.

In honour of the celebrations and with a nod to city supporters from across our charity, İlkay shared a special letter, praising the incredible work of our teams and the inspirational achievements of the people we support. You can read the full letter here.

The message culminated with İlkay revealing a surprise donation of Turkish food and drinks, from local restaurants and food outlets, which were delivered to 120 people we support, ahead of the match.

Thanks to İlkay’s generous donation, many of the people we support across the North West enjoyed Champions League celebration parties that they’ll never forget.

This marks one of many special experiences that İlkay has created for our charity over the past few years, including inviting people we support to be Guests of Honour at Etihad Stadium to mark his 31^st birthday and visiting fans in our services for socially distanced meetings during the pandemic.

Karl, a person we support in Ashton-Under-Lyne, was amongst the recipients of the food donation. Expressing his gratitude, he said, “Thanks so much İlkay. The food was so delicious. I had never had Turkish food before and I loved it! Now, I can’t wait to find my nearest Turkish restaurant and visit. We had a great party and it was so exciting watching Manchester City win!”

John Hughes, Director of Partnerships and Communities at Community Integrated Care, said, “We’d like to say a huge thank you to İlkay for his incredibly generous donation and congratulate him on Manchester City’s win at the weekend. For some people this was their first time trying Turkish food and experiencing a different cuisine, and it was great to see so many wonderful celebrations taking place across our charity as a result.”

“We’re so proud and grateful to have İlkay as our Ambassador, he’s already had such an incredible impact on our people. Over the past few years, he has created some really special experiences for our colleagues and the people we support and this weekend was another brilliant example of his generosity and commitment to our charity.”

Sharing the news of the donations, John Hughes and our Sports Inclusion Coordinator, Oliver Thomason, joined BBC Breakfast on Saturday morning. You can watch their interview here.

You can also watch a highlights video of our celebrations below:

Just some of the fun that people we support had cheering on @ManCity this weekend!

Thank you to our Ambassador, @IlkayGuendogan, for helping to make dreams come true once again by helping to arrange special #UCLfinal parties for our charity. https://t.co/0nGZ3qHzOa pic.twitter.com/zLm8sfelPJ

— Community Integrated Care (@ComIntCare) June 12, 2023