‘Dolls’ serve up a new cooker!
A local woman has raised over €4,000 in just five days for a much-needed new cooker to prepare meals for the vulnerable in our community.
Natalie Kelly rallied the 5,500 members of her popular Facebook group ‘Drogheda Dolls’ to raise €4,315, after she read about Bernard
Maguire’s plight in a recent Drogheda Independent article.
Bernard is the chef at Drogheda Homeless Aid and he also supplies the welcome dinners for the Meals on Wheels service in the town.
But his old cooker badly needs to be replaced and after the paper ran a story about the threat to the service, Natalie got working!
‘I have to say a huge thank you to the amazing ladies on Drogheda Dolls for being so generous,’ says Natalie. ‘When I read about the old cooker that was being used to cook the Meals on Wheels, I knew I had to do something to help.’
Bernard says Natalie is ‘a force of nature’! and has praised her efforts.
FLICKING through the Drogheda Independent at home a fortnight ago, regular reader Natalie Kelly spotted the story of Bernard Maguire, who’s using a timeworn cooker to produce dinners for the homeless and elderly in Drogheda.
Fast forward, and within five days of posting an appeal for money on facebook, Natalie had raised more than her target of 4,000 euro for a new cooker!
The reason she has such power? She has the might of 5,500 women behind her on her facebook group Drogheda Dolls.
“I can’t believe we did it, and so quickly,” says Natalie, who is originally from Townrath and lives in Monasterboice.
“There are 5,317 amazing women in the group, and I have to thank each and every one of them for getting behind me and this amazing cause.”
Struggling to find words to express his gratitude is Bernard, the chef at Drogheda Homeless Aid (DHA) – but he gives it a good go!
“Natalie is unbelievable, brilliant, fantastic, a force of nature, and what she did – and does – is phenomenal!”, he says with enthusiasm and gratitude. “She has really gone above and beyond the call of duty, and I would have been delighted if she had turned up at the door with 2,000, and I would have shaken her hand whether I was allowed or not!”
It was only a few hours after the appearance off Hubert Murphy’s article about Bernard preparing meals on the fifteen year old cooker that Natalie put in the call.
“Someone shouted to me that there was a young girl on the phone from Drogheda Ladies or something, and I was delighted when she said she wanted to help,” explains Bernard,
She said what I am doing is brilliant, and I said I’m just doing my job, but I never could have imagined she would raise that much in such a short space of time.”
Bernard says it is a wonderful show of community, and the new cooker will make a world of difference.
“The old one has served us well, and Maureen ( Ward of DHA) says we are very close to be able to afford it, and it looks like the elderly and vulnerable will need the meals for months to come,” he adds.
“We don’t want to be greedy and ask for more money, when there are so many more good causes, but if we can get the new cooker and the equipment to go with it, we’ll be really happy. And of course, we’ve had private donations too, for which we are very grateful.” Hailing from Ballsgrove and now living in Finian’s Park, Bernard has been cooking the meals for the shelter for a decade, adding the meals for the Drogheda Rotary Club service six years ago. “I’ve never had much, but what I do have is the best of friends and I only had to ask Supt Andrew Watters for help and he organised the community gardai to deliver the meals during the coronavirus crisis,” he adds. “And now I can count Natalie, and thousands of women, as new friends, and it’s amazing. The girls are taking over, and look what they can do when they get together!” Meanwhile, Natalie says she will keep the fundraising page on Drogheda Dolls open for another week, to raise as much as she can for the cooker,and the public can donate via GoFundMe Drogheda Dolls. She has her own tribulations, and arranged this campaign while suffering excrutiating back pain on her couch at home. But that’s another story...which you can read on see page 14 of this edition!