With a renewed focus and strategy in the community space, 2024 proved to be a successful year for Essendon.
The Bombers' activity within the local area and willingness to continue their support for different Indigenous communities were apparent throughout the year, with the pilot of their Tiwi Coaching Education Program ready to go once again in 2025, having hosted two exchanges last year.
Dreamtime was another activation which expanded throughout the year across all the club's football programs, with the AFLW squad seeing its first ever Dreamtime in Darwin clash, while the VFL and VFLW programs also visited TIO Stadium for practice matches last February.
The Club's two wheelchair football programs - which both featured in finals - also were able to host a Dreamtime clash with the Tigers at the NEC Hangar, with another big year set to come in the VWFL space in 2025.
More than $290,000 was contributed to local teams and charities throughout the calendar year, where the Club also organised two separate Community games for its AFL and AFLW programs and held two Community Camps in Shepparton.
The Challenge game was a major touchpoint of the AFL season - raising more than $130,000 for the organisation in the fight against children's cancer, 30 kids were involved in the match and were able to relish a once-in-a-lifetime experience when the Bombers faced the Giants in round nine.
Essendon hosted over 200 past players for different events throughout the year, an 87 per cent increase from 2023.
54 children of past players were involved in the Baby Bombers camp, highlighting the Club's push to keep improving their pathway programs.
In Isaac Kako and Jayden Nguyen, the Dons had two draftees from their James Hird Academy program, which had 158 total participants this year and hosted four individual come-and-try sessions.
Extending their reach to schools in the North-west corridor, the Bomber Kids program is also raring to go in 2025, after engaging more than 400 students in their activations last year.
In total, there were 232 separate player connections with the community across both the AFL and AFLW programs in 2024.
