Uplift Challenge inspired by brother’s death

AILIS Brosnan has initiated The UPLIFT Challenge and it’s about doing something positive for others every day for eight days. It began on Saturday, March 10, and will run until March 17.

The dates are highly significant and unforgetable for the Brosnan family. Those are the dates on which their son and brother Denis (Donnacha) fell victim to a heart attack and subsequently died in Galway this time last year.

“The UPLIFT Challenge was inspired by the touching stories my family heard after the death of my brother Denis (Donnacha) last year,” said sister Ailis.

“At his funeral and for weeks beyond, my family were so moved by the number of people who came up to us and said what a positive impact my brother had on their lives.

“It really reminded me how my brother never lost sight of the important things in life – family, friends and community.

“Inspired by this I felt moved to make more of an effort to have a positive impact on a daily basis and to help me do this I set this UPLIFT challenge up last year and now that we are approaching his anniversary I thought it would be lovely to do it again this year.

“It’s very simple – all you need to do is make an effort for each of the eight days (March 10 when he had his heart attack to March 17th when he passed away) to have a positive impact on someone – it can be as simple as a smile, a compliment, a thank you, a held door, a good deed, a visit, a phonecall etc – anything that will uplift another person.

“We never know what’s going on for someone and how even these small acts can make a big difference for them.

“During the week my brother was in ICU and on life support, I was naturally in a very low and vulnerable place and remember how a simple smile from a stranger meant so much.

“I would love for people to join me on this UPLIFT challenge – all you have to do is join the Facebook page (Security Check Required) and ideally post your UPLIFT act daily (you can just write ‘done’ if you don’t want to share the details but sharing will give us all great UPLIFT ideas!