Claire makes appeal for homeless

A Ballymote crèche owner has made an appeal to the public to join her fight to help the homeless by donating gift boxes this Christmas.

Claire Barden, of Learn Early Montessori Academy and Creche, launched the appeal on the back of last year’s success in which more than 250 gift boxes and 25 hampers were donated to four emergency homeless centres in Sligo. She said she hopes to improve on these numbers this Christmas, and has urged the supportive public to get involved.

She said: “I think this is very important as the homeless crisis is getting extensively worse and the number of families who are homeless in Sligo this Christmas has increased. “We are hoping to get as many gift boxes as last year and hopefully be in a position to give one gift box to every person in these four centres.”

She added: “There are also people who were homeless last year who have since been rehomed, but have no one to spend this Christmas with, so we are hoping to be able to help these people out too.” Similar campaigns were also carried out on New Year’s Eve last year as well as Easter.

Children at the creche also got involved at Halloween donating to Shalomar and Maryville accommodation centres. Claire said appropriate items for the gift boxes would be winter essentials as well non- perishable foods. “I would encourage people to get in touch and if any schools want to ring me to get involved I would be delighted to accommodate them. Our Facebook page is there with all the information you could need on it. We are just hoping everything goes well again this year.” For more information see Sligo Homeless Appeal Facebook page.