In Aid of Pieta House & Make a Wish Ireland

The Travel Industry from all over Ireland are getting together on Sunday 1^st September 2013 in ALSAA Sports Club in Dublin Airport to host a family fun day in aid of Pieta House (www.pieta.ie) and Make a Wish Ireland (www.makeawish.ie).

The day will kick off with a 5k Fun Run/Walk at 1pm and will be followed by 5-A-Side football. The day will also include crazy races such as egg and spoon, three legged race, sack races, plus more! A BBQ and refreshments will also be available to keep energy levels high.

A special children’s area, which will include bouncy castles, giant jenga, face painting and lots more, will help keep the little ones entertained.

Registration is now open on this website. Prices for entry are as follows:  Adult €10*, Children €5* (under 16yrs),  Family €25* (2 Adults and dependent children under 16yrs).  Sponsorship and the acceptance of donations, are now available through www.mycharity.ie and sponsorship cards are also available when you register online here.

*Please note, prices above exclude 5-a-side football.

About Pieta House

Pieta House is a suicide and self-harm crisis centre. It is the only organisation in the country providing a professional, face to face, free of charge therapeutic service for people in the acute stages of distress. The primary aim of Pieta House is to reduce suicide by helping people get through that critical phase when suicide becomes a plan rather than just an idea.

Pieta House was founded by Joan Freeman, a practicing psychologist who closed down her own counselling business eight years ago to help people who were suicidal. The unique clinically based model developed by Pieta House is used across the five centres in Dublin and Limerick.

About Make a Wish Ireland

Make-A-Wish® Ireland has one simple aim – We grant the wishes of children aged between 3 and 17 years living with a life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy.

A wish granted is true magic for the child providing respite from their normal routines of hospitals, doctors and treatment.

Since its inception in 1992 Make-A-Wish in Ireland has granted wishes for over 1300 brave children, realising their greatest wish and allowing them experience the hope, strength and joy each wish provides.

The Travel Trade Fun Day Helping Hand Fund

This year, along with raising money for Pieta House and Make a Wish, the Travel Trade Fun Day Committee has created the Travel Trade Family Fun Day Helping Hand Fund. This fund has been created to help smaller charities who may not be as prominent in the public eye. It was set up so that as the event grows, so will the number of people who benefit from it.

Suggestions of recipients of the Helping Hand Fund can be submitted to the committee each year. They will then choose two to benefit from the proceeds of that year’s Travel Trade Family Fun Day.

Recipients of the Helping Hand Fund will have connections to the travel industry so that the event also gives back to those in need within the travel industry and will each receive a sum of up to €5,000.

This year, the recipients of the Travel Trade Fun Day Helping Hand Fund are Cheeverstown House and Footsteps for Alex, two very deserving causes.

Cheeverstown House

Cheeverstown House, based in Dublin, is a voluntary organisation, accredited by the Council on Quality & Leadership providing a wide range of residential, respite and day services to almost 400 children and adults with an intellectual disability and to their families in Cheeverstown Centre and throughout various community locations. This includes residential places in Cheeverstown Centre; with the remaining places in houses throughout the locality.

Cheeverstown House provides a further 17 respite places as well as flexible in home support; a range of early childhood, education and day care services for children; vocational training and employment programmes for adults. Services are provided to a large extent in the Dublin South West region of the Health Services Executive; mostly in South Dublin Council Area including Tallaght.

Footsteps for Alex

Alex Hoban is a 3-year-old boy living in Dublin who contracted bacterial meningitis at only 6-weeks-old. Then, just before his first birthday, he was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. As a result he was left unable to walk without the aid of a frame or wheelchair.

Footsteps for Alex is a charity that was set up to raise funds to send Alex to America for an operation to enable him to walk unaided and remove the need for Botox injections and serial castings. The operation is not available in Ireland, nor is it funded by the HSE. It is entirely funded through donations.