AFLW player Aimee Schmidt was joined by staff from the club's Community and Game Development team as well as the West Australian Football Commission and West Perth Football Club in an important regional visit across the Wheatbelt region.
Education was on the agenda for the three day visit with programs such as Eagles Rock My School, Junior SOAR and Eagle Insight delivered to a number of school children while the popular Faction Footy got the kids moving.
Growing up in the Wheatbelt, Schmidt was ecstatic to head back to the region and provide some educational opportunities for the kids.
“The trip was really good and it was a nice day out in Cunderdin. We ran some clinics with the kids at the primary school and then headed over to the footy club to run an Auskick clinic over there,” she said.
"Hopefully they can take a few things from us that we’ve taught them, and they can put it into their own footy and their own lifestyle.”
Schmidt said the reception from participants throughout the visit was extremely positive.
“Those kids don’t get to come to Perth very often so when they have people coming out to them I think they really appreciate it and they really enjoy it.”
“When I was playing footy as a junior, I don’t think I ever had people come out to us, it was always going out to Perth to do clinics and stuff like that so we never really had the same opportunity.”
“I think the ability for us to go out there and have our presence out in the Wheatbelt is really big.”
The trip was a joint initiative between the club, the WAFC and West Perth to educate the region’s youth, with the Wheatbelt being part of the Falcons WAFL talent zone.
Regional Community Officer Sam Rotham coordinates the club’s varying programs within the Wheatbelt as part of a regional team that stretches across WA.
Rotham praised the local communities for their energy throughout and lauded the chance to connect with parts of the region that don’t receive the level of opportunity as the metro area.
“This trip provided an opportunity to get to towns within the Wheatbelt region that the club had not been too before and others that we had not been too for a long time,” he said.
“It warmed the sole with the joy that was on all the participants faces throughout the clinics and they were very thankful to have two clubs with such strong football history visit their towns and their schools.”
“Every resident we came across in each of the farming towns were so welcoming and showed great appreciation for the work we are doing within their townships.”
