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Creating better futures together
Help us help our community
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THE HISTORY OF KITAD
​HOW DID KITAID BEGIN?
KitAid were formed in 1998 by founder Derrick Williams MBE who was in Tanzania on a WaterAid supporters’ trip. He noticed how local people would interact with him in the most remote areas simply because he was wearing a football shirt. Derrick remembered one particular small boy who was wearing a battered and worn-out old Liverpool shirt that was barely recognisable. After two weeks in Tanzania, a flame was lit in Derrick’s heart and he was on a mission to provide kit and equipment to the bare-footed children playing with footballs made of tied string and plastic bags.
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Recruiting family, friends and colleagues he collected the first set of donations and had them shipped out to Tanzania. Fast forward to 2026 and thanks to the small team of volunteers and committee members who have helped over the years KitAid has now donated a staggering 1,250,000+ items of kit around the world.
Derrick with patron Graham Taylor
Tanzania 1998
Celebrating 500,000 items gifted
DIAMONDS IN THE COMMUNITY AND KITAID
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Diamonds in the Community's history with KitAid actually pre dates the formation of the charity, we first started working with KitAid 5 years before gaining charity status, in actual fact it is largely thanks to KitAid that we exist at all.​
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Back in 2014, whilst members of Airdrieonians Supporters Trust a strip amnesty was created to collect old unwanted kit that would be in turn donated to KitAid. In return for the donations the Trust would provide a free children's season ticket for Airdrie FCs upcoming season. This proved to be a massive success and was repeated across another four seasons. Through this initiative 25,000 items of kit were collected and over 2000 under 16s season tickets distributed to local children. This sparked a range of community minded projects that would ultimately lead to the formation of Diamonds in the Community.
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We were awarded 'Ambassador Club' status with KitAid and were quickly recognised as the Scottish Hub for donations. Clubs and organisations around Scotland would get in touch and arrange to get their donations to us where we would sort, count and box them up to be shipped off to KitAid HQ. From the Highlands to the Borders donations were received from a wide range of groups who would have their kit sent across the world thanks to KitAid.
Over the years we were being contacted by more expats from African countries who were now living in Scotland, many of them were working with their old schools and communities and would help them in anyway they could. We were suddenly working with these partners and instead of shipping the kit to KitAid first we were arranging with these partners to have them shipped directly from Scotland to places including Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Derrick and the team at KitAid realised that we had in actual fact become a self sufficient leg of the KitAid brand and in 2025 we were absolutely delighted to be recognised as KitAid Scotland. The only other official KitAid branches are KitAid USA and KitAid Australia, so it is safe to say we are extremely proud to have been entrusted to operate in our own capacity whilst representing the KitAid name.
Diamonds in the Community are the host organisation for the Community Solutions led Consortia for the Airdrie Locality. There are six other Localities in North Lanarkshire in Bellshill, Coatbridge, Motherwell, The North and Wishaw & Shotts. For more information on the Community Solutions led Consortia see here
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Please watch the video below which tells the story of our history working in partnership with KitAid and how the charity has grown in that time.