Football fans will be helping out impoverished people in freezing parts of Europe with a second-hand kit collection on Mitzvah Day this weekend.

Shirts and other items of clothes collected at Sunday’s event, organised by Jewish sports group Maccabi GB, will be sent to impoverished Jewish people in Ukraine, where winter temperatures drop as low as -35 degrees Celsius.

The donation is being organised on the annual Jewish good deeds day Mitzvah Day, taking place on and around the official date of Sunday, November 18.

Maccabi GB’s centres in Hendon, Borehamwood, Edgware and Manchester, will be collecting sports shirts, as well as socks, gloves, scarves and warm tracksuits, to ship over in the coming weeks.

Project manager Jessica Overlander-Kaye said: “It is great to be able to do this. We engage with so many footballers on a daily basis and it is a nice, easy way for people to get involved and make a significant difference to the lives of other people.

“To have the opportunity to help another Jewish Community on the other side of Europe, especially one that is disadvantaged, is a mitzvah. It is an idea we wanted to act on instantly.

“Many members of the community who take part in sport up and down the UK will no doubt have access to some kind of sports kit they no longer use.

“We encourage everyone to donate what you can to help these families who exist in conditions that we could never dream of encountering, let alone live in.”

For further details about where to drop the kit off, call Maccabi GB on 0208 457 2333.