Local volunteers prove to be crust amazing

A young Navan man has launched a remarkable campaign  which brings food, music and a big slice of compassion to the homeless in Dublin every weekend.

Cormac Noonan of Seneschalstown is the man behind The Pizza Sunday Club, a group that has been operating for over a year and which has been bringing a little fun and dignity into the lives of the homeless.

While many young people take on the ‘12 pubs’ session during over Christmas, Cormac took on a whole new and much more worthy challenge for himself one Christmas when he decided to skip the tour of local hostelries.

He decided to spend the money instead on giving pizza to the homeless in Dublin and that has now grown into a genuinely remarkable campaign of feeding and socialising with the homeless people of Dublin and saw him establish The Pizza Sunday Club.
Now every Sunday evening, Cormac, his friends Martin Connolly from Clones, Seneschalstown footballer, Teean Cummins and other volunteers can be seen bringing pizza to the homeless, socialising with them and they usually have organised some music as well.
This past Christmas they held a party in Grafton Street, where there was as usual, plenty of free pizza and good music from a Dublin band called The Scratch.
Emma-Jane Campbell-O’Brien, Debbie Kerrigan, Celine Whelan and Niamh Murtagh, parents at Lismullen National School helped organise shoeboxes of presents for the homeless.
“My friend Susan Tighe also organised a shoebox collection with her workmates in Three Steps,” said Cormac.
“We handed out boxes of gifts to each homeless person and at the end we had an extra 30 boxes or so which we gave to the residents in Apollo House.
“We also had donations from many locals made to us including donations from the Seneschalstown GFC players fund and Finnegan’s Farm, while Largo Foods donated boxes of crisps.
“There are videos of the party on our Facebook page.”
“The goal of Pizza Sunday Club is to break the stigma associated with homeless people and get the public to see them as individuals with hopes and dreams of their own. We aim to do this through providing pizza and live music and creating a relaxed atmosphere where homeless people and other members of the public can chat and have fun”.
Cormac is a son of Caitriona and Michael Noonan.
A former student of St Patrick’s Classical School, he played football for Seneschalstown and then went on to study business and computers in Trinity College, Dublin.
For the past two years, he has been working for the Accenture IT company in Dublin.
“On my way to work I used to pass the same homeless man each day and it often struck me that I was in lucky to be in such a privileged position in comparison to him.
“I got a sickening feeling in my stomach as I looked at a man with pennies in his paper cup as I’d walk by after coming from my nice warm bed. Other people rushing to work, barely noticed the man”.
On the 23rd December 2015, Cormac and his college friend Martin Connolly from Clones were due to embark on a 12 pubs of Christmas outing, but decided instead to spend their money on some pizzas for the individuals who were hungry and cold in the lead-up to the loneliest time of the year for them.
“We spent the day going around Dublin city centre visiting homeless people and sharing pizza with them. We listened to their amazing and heart-breaking stories and I felt a real urge to get to know them more.
“We did this a number of times, walking around with pizzas but then we decided to set up a table as the pizzas were getting cold.
“In April we set up a table outside the Disney Store in Grafton Street and now every Sunday evening we gather there and provide pizza and entertainment. We want to break down the barriers with homeless people”.
He explained that a friend of his Sarah Keane from Clonmellon used to work in Dominos and she contacted them, with the result that they now provide 15 free pizzas every week.
As the months went on, they needed more and now Apache pizza provides a further 15.
“We now share out about 35 pizzas each week and Deliveroo has sponsored the bags to keep the pizza warm.
“The aim of the club is not just to feed the homeless but to chat to them and see other ways in which we can help.”
They have set up The Pizza Sunday Club and members are asked to pay €5 a week to help provide many essentials needed by homeless people including warm underclothes, hats and gloves.
“We also invite members to come down and join us and have a chat with the homeless.
“We try to have people chatting and breaking down the social barriers. We want to include the homeless in Society.
“I would love for our TDs to come and chat with them and see what can be done and we want more people to get involved in the club,” Cormac says.
“I have great support from friends and family through donations and help giving out pizzas on Sundays.”
“Although the main aim of the campaign is to help feed the people on the streets of Dublin, there is so much more to it than that as it also gives the individuals an opportunity to tell their stories and they are treated a human being, rather than a statistic.”
If you would like to get involved in this remarkable campaign to help the homeless, you can simply sign up as a member on their website PizzaSundayClub.com for €5 a month or you can come down to Grafton St (outside the Disney shop) any Sunday from 8.30pm to 10pm and help out.