Mullingar Community College TY students plan sleepout in aid of Focus Ireland

A group of 20 TY students and four teachers from Mullingar Community College will spend the night of Friday October 15 sleeping out in the school grounds to ‘Shine A Light’ for Focus Ireland and in doing so, raising awareness of homelessness in Ireland.

The sleepout is part of the annual Focus Ireland Shine a Light campaign.

Joe Rayfus, transition year co-ordinator at Mullingar Community College, said: “Last year, 13 teachers (Joe included) took part and raised almost €13,000. It wasn’t feasible at the time to include students due to the Covid restrictions in place, but we had great support from our students – and many of them wanted to get involved this year.

“There are currently 8,212 people who are homeless and relying on emergency homeless accommodation in Ireland – at this moment in time, Westmeath has 30 adults in official homeless emergency accommodation and another 1,222 households on the social housing waiting list, a figure that has not changed in the last 12 months, so it’s important to remember that homelessness is not just a social issue reserved for the streets of the capital.”

The group have set up a fundraising page and are asking the people of Mullingar and the surrounding areas to support their efforts.

People can donate as much or a little as they can manage. Every cent counts and the group hope to top the leaderboard of schools taking part this year.

If people wish to donate, they can find the link to the donation page on our school’s Facebook and Instagram pages or by visiting the Shine a Light website and searching for ‘Mullingar Community College TY Team 2021’.

Mr Rayfus said: “We’ve had great support from our student body, so many wanted to take part but in order to ensure the event is done in the safest way possible, it was decided that the transitions year group would represent the entire school community.”

On behalf of the TY students. Mr Rayfus wanted to thank the staff, students, parents and LWETB for their support in organising the event.