€3,500 DONATED TO ST AIDAN’S

A TOTAL of €3,500 was raised for St Aidan’s Services by residents of Gorey’s Oakhill estate after a 25 households came together in their own groups to run, walk and cycle a 400 metre loop to complete 247 kilometres as a combined effort.

The relay took place from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. with the 247 kilometres completed to represent the tireless work carried out by those in care centres 24/7.

The team had set an initial fundraising target of €1,000 which they got to within 24 hours, but the hope is now that their efforts will encourage more local estates and groups to take on some similar fundraising activities.

Darren Burke, who lives on Oakhill, thanked all the participants and those who made donations.

‘This is hopefully something that we can build upon next year. St Aidan’s was hugely appreciative and were so approachable and made it easy for us. They’ve had other fundraisers throughout the year that they’ve had to put on the back burner, like most of those charitable organisations. We were glad to play our part as St Aidan’s is a very worthy cause, with the huge extent of the work in the community in north Wexford. They reach out to over 300 families in the services which is just vital.

‘I want to thank anyone who donated, we had over 100 donations of varying amounts but every little bit counts so we are very grateful and thankful and I want to thank the participants for so selflessly giving up their time,’ he said.

Darren said that the event has really brought the neighbourhood closer, even while maintaining a physical distance from each other.

‘From the younger to the older people, everyone dug in and gave willingly of their time. We might see our next door neighbours once or twice every fortnight with coming and going in normal times you might not even get to talk to them and certainly not other neighbours on the other side of the estate. Getting to know people and meeting others was hugely positive, you can put names to faces from now on when you’re out and about which was part of it. Everyone is out exercising at the moment so it was good to do that with a goal in mind, so we’ve developed our community spirit.

‘It was a great day that flew by and we had the weather’.

Eimear Mannion, CEO of St Aidan’s Services, receives a cheque for €3,500 – the proceeds of the Oakhill residents walk, run and cycle relay – from relay organisers Darren Burke and Katie Quinlan at St Aidan’s Garden Centre.