Four charities to benefit from annual charity walk

The hardy walkers of the region will be out in force in Creggs on St. Stephen’s Day, Tuesday, December 26th for the annual trek ‘up, down and around the Mountain’ in aid of local charities.

Funds from last year’s walk have been disbursed to four good causes, with €1,000 going to Galway Hospice, Mayo Roscommon Hospice, ACT for Meningitis and the Sunshine Room, Creggs NS. This year’s chosen charities are the two local hospice groups, Pieta and the Sunshine Room in Creggs NS.

Chairman of the walk Michael O’Roarke has urged local people to get involved in this year’s event, by getting their sponsorship cards and getting collecting for these four worthy groups. This year the funds collected will be divided equally between the local charities.

Pieta delivers intervention and bereavement counselling and has a freephone helpline that supports families devastated by the loss of a loved one by suicide. All Pieta services are free of charge and staff are fully qualified, providing a professional one-to-one therapeutic service for people who are experiencing suicidal ideation, people who have attempted suicide and people who are engaging in self-harm. A doctor’s referral or a psychiatric report is not required. Pieta’s three main pillars of practice are prevention, intervention and postvention. Last year Pieta delivered over 50,000 hours of counselling and received almost 100,000 calls to their 24-hour freephone helpline.

Roscommon Mayo Hospice has opened an 8-bed in-patient facility adjacent to Roscommon Hospital to provide respite and end-of-life services. The new facility cost €6.3 million and was the culmination of many years of fundraising by the hospice group. It provides day care, community care and the 8-bed in-patient facility. Mayo Roscommon Hospice provides palliative care services to people with life-limiting illness and their families in counties Roscommon and Mayo. Since its foundation it has helped over 18,000 patients and their families. Funds raised for Mayo Roscommon Hospice through the Creggs Charity Walk will be used for palliative home care teams, night nursing services, specialist equipment for patients, bereavement support and counselling for families.

Many families throughout County Galway have benefited from the services provided by Galway Hospice Foundation. Each year this voluntary organisation provides service to over 600 patients in their own homes and in other non-hospital settings. Galway Hospice in Renmore offers a multidisciplinary medical team as well as complementary therapists and pastoral care. It also offers a community palliative care service and palliative day care services, all of which aim to improve the quality of life for people suffering from life-limiting illnesses. As well as supporting cancer patients, Galway Hospice also supports people with conditions such as dementia, heart failure and motor neurone disease.

The Sunshine Room in Creggs NS is a classroom for children with severe or profound learning disabilities. The children are integrated with their mainstream peers so that the bonds of friendship, respect, understanding and care are fostered naturally during the school day through music, art, play, drama, cookery, seed sowing, PE, social outings and other school events. Children can access individual physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language programmes through various therapists in the classroom.

After a break due to Covid, last year’s walk was a welcome return to normal and the €4,000 raised will no doubt go some way to providing much-needed services through the four local groups. This year organisers are hoping that once again the people of the region will opt to walk off the turkey and Christmas excess with the nine-mile walk, of course not forgetting the traditional stop off at Mary Devaney’s house in Friaryland for a cup of tea, some refreshments and maybe even a song!

So, it’s time to get your sponsorship cards out and get into training for this worthy annual event.

For further information contact Chairman Michael O’Roarke at O’Roarke’s Spar, Creggs.