To keep elderly Irish people in London in touch with each other, their community, sources of practical help and the latest corona advice.
We have 6000 Irish elderly people to contact, many are not online and do not own mobile phones so we need to write to them - we want to send an uplifting, helpful correspondence to bring practical help but also joy at a time when so many are at acute risk of loneliness - but it doesn't have to be this way.
We have a team of volunteers working through the landline telephone numbers to make sure every single person is contacted and aware they can access practical help to get food and medicines, as well as friendly chats on the phone to help ease this horrible time.
But for all our client group, the post is our main way of keeping in touch - our newsletters are usually a source of great joy to us and them - we include community news and photographs, invitations to events with our choir, our theatre group and some of our regular community outings which in the last year have included visits to meet the President of Ireland, to the Foreign Office where we were hosted by a team of their lawyers and diplomats, to the Houses of Parliament where we were hosted by MPs and Lords from across the political spectrum and the Embassy of Ireland, where the Ambassador welcomed the Irish Pensioners Choir to perform for St Brigid's Day. We get around.
Corona has stopped all of this and we desperately want to keep in touch and provide a little chink of light in this dark time. Our clients are a high risk group and the chair of our organisation - Alice Kennedy - died from corona virus just days ago. We want to write to her many friends to tell them, to share her advice - STAY AT HOME- and to remember together, the best way we can right now,, by sharing the many tributes to her we have received - including from the President of Ireland, who called her "a most noble daughter of Ireland".
We need money to pay a company to print and post this newsletter, to our thousands of clients, in a way which does not present any risks to our staff and volunteers. It sounds like a small thing but we are told time and time again by our clients how much they look forward to the news from us - we need this exceptional funding to spend on a one-off corona crisis mail out.
This crowdfunder is bring organised by the daughters of two powerhouse women - Sally Mulready and Margaret Geiger - who have driven the charity from strength to strength through sheer hard work and devotion. This is our contribution - please help us.
In hope,
Molly Mulready, Rosie Geiger and Jane Geiger
We ask project owners to honour their rewards wherever possible but please note that all pledges are donations and there is no guarantee that you will receive any rewards from the project owner. Please see Crowdfunder's Terms of Use for more information regarding rewards for pledges.
This project successfully funded on 25th April 2020