Wonderul support for a very special event
LADIES FOOTBALL & ELLEN KINCH MEMORIAL EVENT
EVERY year since 2008, the Kinch family has hosted a charity football blitz in memory of Ellen Kinch, who tragically passed away in 2007 from cancer. All proceeds from the blitz, which raised over €5,000 last year, goes to Barretstown Children’s Charity.
As with so many other facets of life, the 2020 iteration of the Ellen Kinch Memorial Cup was forced to be cancelled as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Knowing that ways in which the fundraiser could take place were limited, Jackie Kinch – Ellen’s younger sister - approached Barretstown with an alternative idea.
‘I had originally planned on just doing a challenge between ourselves as a family. If people wanted to donate to support, they could just donate to Barretstown, just to keep the event going and to keep Ellen’s name out there,’ she explained.
‘I put this idea to Barretstown and they said, ‘if you hold off for a little while, there is a Challenge 32 coming up.’ That is how it came about. It was kind of a countrywide thing. There were other charities using it, as well.’
The idea for the Challenge 32 was simple: participants took part in an activity with the theme being the number 32. For example, they could partake in a physical exercise for 3.2 minutes, 32 times, and so on. It wasn’t solely available to the sportier inclined, as some people drew pictures with 32 different colours, and other such creative ways of utilising the theme of ‘32’.
Once they had completed the challenge, people often sent pictures into the ’Ellen Kinch Memorial Cup’ Facebook page, at which point Jackie was able to marvel at the ingenuity of some of the participants.
‘They were actually mad. The different ideas that people have come up. You’d be thinking, ‘how did they even think of that?’ There were some brilliant ones.
‘We actually can’t believe it because we thought that this year, when the actual event wasn’t going ahead, we wouldn’t be as successful. We can’t believe the support we’ve got again this year.’
Despite the original event being cancelled, and despite the new format, this year’s ‘Ellen Kinch Memorial Cup’ has been typically lucrative. At time of writing, it has raised €4,882, just shy of last year’s total, with nine days left for people to donate. The participation has been overwhelming, with even the Tinahely senior men’s and women’s football panels adapting training around the challenge.
‘’I suppose there is a small feeling of achievement there that we were successful in raising funds for Barretstown. At the start, we were thinking, ‘every little helps’. The fact that we were able to get so much. We were absolutely over the moon with it.
‘It’s very important, I suppose. That fact that it means keeping Ellen’s name alive. It meant a lot that so many people were getting involved with it and sharing it on social media, and it was kind of putting it out there.
‘We are proud to keep her name alive.’