Alongside giving up fags, booze and eating more vegetables, you really should add volunteering at Barretstown to your New Year’s resolutions, as they need the men of Ireland to step up.
New year, new you eh? That’s what we all think. We quit the booze, we avoid crisps, we delete the gambling app off our phone thinking, yep, this year is going to be different. Sadly, for most of us, we are back on the drink, Tayto and punting before the end of the month.
But there is one thing you can do that doesn’t take too much of that hard-to-come-by willpower and it will improve your life and the lives of lots of others too; volunteer to help out the folks at Barretstown.
Barretstown in Kildare is a specially-designed camp that provides Therapeutic Recreation programmes for children with serious illnesses and their families. Set up by Paul Newman, they do tremendous work and the impact it has on those who need their services is enormous.
To allow the families who visit to do so free of charge, the camps are staffed by volunteers, and they need about a 1,000 every year to work with the campers and help the weekends go smoothly. And while they get some men taking part, they got in touch with us because they need more of you. Lots more of you.
Volunteer coordinator Danielle Griffin tells us that just over 16 per cent of volunteers, or Cara’s as they are called, are currently men and that is something Barettstown want to improve on in 2014.
They plan to campaign in colleges and GAA clubs this year to boost those numbers and we plan to send one of our lads down to volunteer for a weekend so we can really understand the great work they do. We hope some of you will think about doing the same.
Check out their Facebook page, or their website, to hear from those who have been Cara’s already and find out just how much they took out of the experience. It’ll definitely be the best thing you do this year.
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