A feast of Mayo-related fundraisers

Willie Joe

It’s Mayo Day tomorrow and, ahead this, there are several Mayo-themed fundraisers which may be of interest to you.

Let’s start first with one in which the heavy lifting has already been done. I mentioned the other day Chris O’Grady’s virtual walk from his home in Churchtown up here in Dublin to his native Louisburgh. That’s a total of 267km, which Chris covered pacing around his back garden in a virtual walk to the west.

Earlier on today, Chris finished his walk and his feat has been picked up by RTÉ:

Chris undertook his cross-country walk to raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland and, so far, he’s raised just under €7,500. If you want to add to this tally by making a donation you can do so here.

Next, my own local club in the west, Aghamore, are holding a fundraiser tomorrow in aid of three nursing homes in the parish, for whom they want to buy PPE equipment.

Tomorrow’s event has been styled as a backwards marathon, with 26 club players each running a mile backwards. All of them will do so within 2km of their own homes. If you fancy supporting this worthy cause you can do so here.

Next, another local one for me in the west, Kiltimagh GAA club are holding a 50/50 draw tomorrow evening. They’ll be streaming the draw live on a Facebook event that gets going at 7pm tomorrow.

All the proceeds from this draw go to Mayo Pink Ribbon to support their fundraising for breast cancer research. The May Bank Holiday weekend cycle is normally a huge fundraiser for Mayo Pink Ribbon but, of course, that can’t go ahead this year. Details on the Kiltimagh 50/50 draw are here.

Next, a group of Mayo physios, along with friends and families, are aiming to cover 500 miles tomorrow, undertaking a variety of challenges in doing so, aiming to raise funds for the Mayo University Hospital comfort and care fund.

Mayo LGFA star Niamh Kelly explains the motivation behind this Covid-related fundraiser:

If you want to support this worthy cause, you’ll find full details here.

Next, Belmullet club player Shane Nallen is about to get going on a fundraiser which will involve him covering 300km, broken down into 10km a day for thirty days starting next Thursday, 7th May.

Shane’s fundraiser – 300km for Grace – is in aid of young Grace Walsh who lives in Binghamstown. Grace suffers from a condition called Cytomegalovirus (CMV) along with a number of other conditions and requires 24-hour care. All funds raised will be going into making her life a little bit better. Details of how to contribute to this worthy cause are here.

Next, Croí – the heart disease and stroke charity – have a cracking Mayo Day fundraiser. They’re raffling two of the special limited Mayo Croí jerseys that were worn by the lads in the Kerry match, which was, of course, the final match we played before the pandemic intervened. The jerseys being raffled were both signed by all the members of the Mayo team.

Raffle tickets cost €10 each, with three tickets on offer for €20 and ten for €50 (as the Yanks would say, that’s the best value option). Full details on the raffle are here.

That link, by the way, also leads you to a Croí discussion with Mayo greats Martin Carney, Andy Moran and James Horan. But you don’t even need to go there to see it as I’ve pasted it in just below.

Finally, news of a fundraiser that’s already all wrapped up and completed. You’ll no doubt know by now of Cathal Freeman’s garden hurling marathon, which he ran a few weeks back and which ended up raising a total of €62,616 for the Irish Cancer Society and to purchase PPE equipment for HSE health workers.

The latter half of the money raised is being given to UL Hospitals and the Chief Academic Officer of the UL Hospital Group spoke recently with Cathal to thank him – and, by extension, all those who contributed to the cause – for his efforts. Let’s end this fundraising-related post with the video of the discussion between them:

3 thoughts on “A feast of Mayo-related fundraisers”

  2. I’d say your servers are having a well earned rest Willie Joe it’s very quiet in here of late minimal traffic as is I suppose to be expected

  3. It’s pretty quiet alright, Backdoorsam. April saw the lowest monthly traffic level on the blog for any month since December 2014. This month looks it’ll be lower than that. Most people seem to have switched off their interest in sport for now, which, in the absence of any live action, is no real surprise.

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