Richmond has extended its preferred charity partnership with national children’s charity, The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, for a further five years.

Tigers’ President Peggy O’Neal made the announcement in front of Richmond members and supporters at the Club’s Family Day, last Sunday at the ME Bank Centre.

The partnership, which was first established in 2012, will continue to raise funds and awareness to support the Foundation’s work preventing bullying and keeping children safe from violence.

Richmond made a contribution of $80,000 to the Foundation in 2014, as a result of its fundraising activities, which included the introduction of The Alannah and Madeline Foundation membership.

The Club also donated 5% of net retail sales to the Foundation, and established the dedicated match day, which will now remain a part of the partnership’s activities over the next five years.

Richmond CEO Brendon Gale said the partnership was incredibly important to the Richmond Football Club.

“The Alannah and Madeline Foundation undertakes critical work that is about keeping our children safe, and there is nothing more important. We are proud to have a trusted and committed charity partner that is making such a significant contribution to the wider community,” Gale said.

“Importantly, our fans have wholeheartedly embraced this partnership, supporting the activities we have undertaken to raise funds and awareness. They are integral to making partnerships like this work, and they should be proud of what we have achieved together.”

Dr Judith Slocombe, CEO of The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, is delighted to have the Richmond Football Club on board as Community Partner for the next five years to raise awareness in the broader community that bullying is a serious issue.

“The Richmond Football Club has always been such a loyal crusader of our cause, and a committed supporter of our programs, and it’s fantastic to have the support of the Club to help us spread the message that bullying is never acceptable, and should never be tolerated,” Dr Slocombe said.

“Our children deserve nothing less than to live in a world free from bullying. With the Club’s support, we can reach thousands of children to keep them safe from violence.”

Richmond will continue to raise funds to enable the Better Buddies program to be implemented in more schools across Australia.

Better Buddies, which has been introduced in more than 1,700 primary schools across Australia, creates friendly and caring school communities to help reduce the incidence of bullying.

Richmond expects to have funded the implementation of Better Buddies into 100 Primary Schools across Australia by 2020.

Richmond is also committed to funding the eSmart Schools framework for five schools each year, supporting 25 schools by 2020.

eSmart Schools is a cultural-change framework that guides the introduction of policies, practices and whole-school change processes to support the creation of a cybersafe or ‘eSmart’ environment.

With this combined commitment, Richmond will directly support almost 40,000 children, helping keep them safe from violence and bullying, by 2020.

For more information about the work of The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, go to: www.amf.org.au