Bellurgan United agrees that every little helps from Tesco

THE Tesco Community Fund helps thousands of local causes right across Ireland, donating up to €1million each year and Bellurgan FC was one of the recent causes to be backed by shoppers in the local area.

And Bellurgan FC were innovative in the way they used the funding they received, by ensuring they invested in a little piece of infrastructure that will help them to generate funds into the future.

For the players of Bellurgan FC, their biggest rivals can be found off the pitch. Its members range in age from seven-years-old to their over 60s and the football club really relies on community support to help with their running costs.

However, the club is situated in the GAA stronghold of North Louth and while coach Neil Clynch feels that the local sporting competition really benefits the community, he admits that it’s difficult to raise money when there are so many competing worthy causes.

For regular income, the club started a local lotto draw, the Blotto, to boost their coffers but other, bigger clubs had a similar idea.

That was when one of their members asked if there was enough funding to put a sign up to advertise the local lotto so that passers-by could get involved. And that’s where the Community Fund came in.

The club were nominated and chosen for the Community Fund cycle in Tesco Extra Dundalk and eight weeks later, after lots of community support and all of their teams piling into the store to vote using their blue tokens, they received a cheque from their local store.

A few weeks later, up went the club’s signage, as did the interest in their local lotto, which helps provide a source of vital funding for Bellurgan United..

‘ The Tesco Community Fund is a brilliant idea’, said Club Secretary, Austin Traynor. ‘ Every penny is really precious and we are very grateful to it Tesco and to everyone who voted for our club.

‘As well as the sign we were able to use some of the money to get the Blotto uop and running online, so anyone can play by following the links on our Facebook page.’

Community Champion for Tesco Extra Dundalk, David D’Arcy said: ‘ The Community Fund is open to any good cause or group so if you think you know a local organisation that could benefit from some extra funding, please nominate them in store today.

‘And don’t forget to vote for your preferred cause each time you shop using your blue token, because it really does make a difference.’

Tesco customers can simply fill out a nomination form in store and every eight weeks, three local causes will be selected for the Tesco Community Fund.

At the end of each phase, blue token votes are counted and up to €1,000 is shared proportionally between the three local causes. Last week, Tesco spent the day filming with Bellurgan FC to show how they used their donation. The video will be was released on Friday so make sure to keep an eye out for it at facebook.com/TescoIreland and on twitter.com/TescoIrl.