Novel approach to Raharney jerseys benefits charity

An innovative approach to jersey sponsorship at Raharney GAA has generated funds for several charities in recent years.

This year, the beneficiary is the Barretstown Camp, Bernard Crowley, coach with the club’s senior hurlers told the Westmeath Examiner at a cheque presentation event last Thursday.

“I’ve been doing this for the last five or six years, where I sponsor the team with a set of jerseys, but rather than just give them the jerseys, I get them to donate money to a charity that I pick,” said Bernard.

“It’s been a different one every year. The last one we did here was the Make-A-Wish Foundation. This year we’re going with Barretstown Camp.

“I previously did Barretstown when I was with Lucan Sarsfield, and the response has been absolutely superb from the lads, huge buy-in. They’ve wanted to do it themselves.

“So I’m very pleased with the way it went. We raised £2,630. How it works is, I give them the jerseys, but instead of just handing out jerseys, they pay, they donate what they like. Some lads have given €200.”

Present at Raharney GAA to accept the donation last Thursday was Tim O’Dea, director at Barretstown, with responsibility for fundraising.

“We’re delighted to be the beneficiary of the generosity of the club,” he said. “As a charity, we depend on voluntary contributions. We need €9 million a year just to run our programmes. We get about 4% from the Irish government, which is welcome, but very small. So the rest comes from fundraisers like this.

“It’s an innovative fundraiser, something we think other clubs could copy, but we’re delighted and grateful to Bernard and all of the lads who have contributed so generously to this.”

Mr O’Dea explained a bit about Barretstown: “It’s a 500-acre residential facility outside Ballymore Eustace, County Kildare. It provides residential and outreach programmes for children affected, mostly by cancer, but other serious illnesses as well, and their families.

“So we take them down, give them a chance to just be normal kids for a week. We take them away from treatment, from hospital, from illness, from sickness, and just give them a chance to be normal children for a while.

“Doing that has a remarkable effect on their confidence, their self-esteem, their independence, their sense of self. So we try and give these children back the childhood that the illness takes away.

“This year we’ll serve more than 22,000 children and family members, between our residential and outreach programmes.”