Help sought to support special Christmas party for homeless families
Hannah McNamara
Johnstown Tidy Towns have announced that they will be organising a Christmas party for homeless families in Meath.
With the help of the transition year students and teachers at St Michael's Loreto, Navan, Johnstown TT will host a "special" Christmas celebration that will include a Santa visit and other fun Christmas themed party games for the children.
Loreto students will also be performing a variety of Christmas songs and carols.
St Michael's Loreto will host the party on the 14th December and supply festive decorations.
Clodagh Gray, one of the transition year students explained the class' motivation to get involved in this event: "In our Development Education class we learned about the Sustainable Development Goals and in particular the goal of No Poverty. After researching this goal further we were inspired to take action which is why we came up with the idea to host a Christmas party at our school, for children and their families from our community who are experiencing living in emergency accommodation. We hope it will be a great event and look forward to welcoming everyone to our school."
Sponsoring this event and giving the community group great support are Smiths SuperValu, Navan and Malones Toyota, Navan.
Athboy's People Who Share Care Group and Core Ireland are also supporting the event by putting together Christmas hampers for the families.
Working closely with 69 families across the county, Johnstown TT need all the help they can get to organise this festive party, especially from the public. Alan Lawes said: "All your support is welcome. Let's get together and make Christmas a little bit special for homeless families."
If you would like to support this cause, please visit https://coreireland.ie/donate/ or get in touch with Cllr Alan Lawes at 0851757216.
The Tidy Towns group are looking to provide Christmas hampers for the families and goodie bags for the kids as well as Smyths Toys Store vouchers. You donate online to Core Ireland or drop vouchers, such as SuperValu vouchers to contribute to the hampers or Smyths Toys vouchers, into the office in Navan.
Non-perishable items such as pudding, biscuits, selection boxes, etc are also welcome to contribute to the hampers to make them that little more Christmassy. Alan Lawes said: "The more items we can get the better. Nothing will go to waste, what we don't use in the hampers for the party-goers, we will use in the Christmas hampers we deliver around the town to the homeless, seperate to this event."
Last year St Michael's transition year students partnered up with Johnstown Tidy Towns in another event for the homeless. They raised over €1,600 as well as clothing for the homeless through a sleepout event in Navan.