Flower show to make a mark for two great causes
RENÉE McCarthy and friends are arranging A Floral Demonstration by Kathleen Reidy for the River Island Hotel at 7.30pm on December 4. Tickets, at €5, are available at the door.
Kathleen, a native of Ballyduff, North Kerry and living in Camp, Castleisland, is a multi award-winning florist/flower arranger.
She holds the distinction of winning the Féile na mBláth Cup at the Tralee Garden Festival for the fourth time in June 2017, beating 60 other finalists.
All proceeds of the Castleisland show will go to the Kerry/ Cork Health Link Bus and the the new Palliative Care Unit in Tralee.
The organisers are putting out an appeal for sponsorship or part funding of the event.
They would greatly appreciate any help and ideas people or companies out there could provide them with. Renée’s number is 086 0820590.
Kerry Hospice Foundation has just come through a busy year. Last December it opened a brand new, state-of-the-art, inpatient palliative care unit.
With a flexible configuration, it can care for up to 17 patients at a time. Since it opened it has been full almost permanently, with over 300 patients having made use of the facility.
Such care does not come cheaply. The unit cost the foundation €6.5 million, and every cent of this was raised in Kerry.
“It is a tribute to the people of the county that we had the ability to take on this massive challenge,” said Castleisland branch chairman Jack Shanahan.
“As if the capital cost wasn’t enough, we also have committed to €400,000 annual funding for five years. In addition, we need about another €100,000 to keep the rest of our services going. When you realize that this is building on our successful Suaimneas Centre – the outpatient palliative care unit, which cost €3.6 million, all raised in Kerry – you can see that we have a regular need to raise funds. Kerry Hospice Foundation is ultimately a selfhelp group where none of the fundraisers are paid a cent. You can be assured that everything that you give goes directly to providing essential palliative care,” said Mr Shanahan.
Kerry Cancer Support Group is a fully registered charity and was founded in 2007. It has gone from strength to strength since then.
“No one should face their cancer journey alone,” is its mission statement.
Kerry Cancer Support Group is devoted to maintaining a warm, welcoming environment while ensuring that service users have immediate access to its free programmes and resources.
Professional staff strive to help people affected by cancer in a way that is as supportive and helpful as possible, to achieve the highest quality of life.
Kerry Cancer Support Group is a community-based, volunteer-driven, community-supported organisation.
Its signature service is the Kerry/Cork Health Link Bus, starting out with a 14-seater minibus.
As demand quickly grew so did the bus. Nowadays, a 30-seater bus travels to Cork University Hospital; The Mercy and The Bons, Cork; and The Cork Clinic five days a week.
This brings the service user for treatment, free of charge, where a dedicated time slot has been arranged for users at the hospital, to minimise delays.
This bus serves Kerry and parts of west Cork, and complete confidentiality is guaranteed.
The service is a vital one and has been likened to a ‘ travelling support group’ by users.
There is also a ‘ bridging transport service’ which provides transport to treatment for service-users on a one-off basis where no other service meets their needs.