Sisters go eggs-tra mile for sick kids
PAIR BRING CHOC JOY TO CHILDREN IN HOSPITAL
TWO young sisters from Dublin have helped to bring the community together through their idea to collect and distribute Easter eggs to children in hospital.
Lauren Metcalfe (16) and her younger sister Ellamay Metcalfe (seven) will give around 800 Easter eggs to the charity Children’s
Health Foundation at
Temple Street, Dublin, this afternoon, which will be distributed to patients across various hospital wards.
Donated
People have donated eggs to the youngsters, from Ballymun in
Dublin, through Revolut or dropped them off at Nan’s Centra &
Off Licence, the shop where their father Thomas Metcalfe works as a delivery driver.
Thomas (36) revealed: “Ten years ago, Lauren broke her leg just before Easter and she had loads of eggs – but she wasn’t a big chocolate person.
“She said to me, ‘Dad, can I bring some of these to the sick kids in the hospital?’ I think at that stage, it was 18 or 19 eggs we brought, but for her to do that herself was an amazing thing. It made me feel proud.”
The next year, the Metcalfes decided to do “something bigger” and it has become a family tradition now.
“There can be a lot of bad publicity about Ballymun, but things like this help the community come together and they’re always there to help,” Thomas said.
Interest
He added there has even been international interest, with a friend who owns a company in Turkey called Get Slim donating €100 each year.
Lauren said: “Last year was the biggest one because we had 993 eggs and it was crazy to see how many people actually donated eggs. It was even hard to take a picture of the eggs as we couldn’t fit them all in.”
One of Thomas’s friends is lending the family a van so they can transport the eggs to the venue this year.