PHOTOS St Gabriel’s Ladies Summer Lunch helps to fundraise for Southill development

2024 St Gabriel’s Foundation Ladies Summer luncheon took place at Dunraven Arms, Adare on May 16, 2024. Picture: Olena Oleksienko/ilovelimerick

The annual St Gabriel’s Ladies Summer Lunch took place on Thursday, May 16 with more than 200 people attending the beautiful Dunraven Arms Hotel in Adare

With the sun signalling the start of summer, two hundred and twenty ladies arrived at the Co. Limerick hotel for lunch and laughter and the main aim of the day was to raise much-needed funds for the development of the old schoolhouse in Southill, which will be the permanent buildings of St. Gabriel’s South City team.

Ireland is known for being one of the most generous nations in the world and businesses from all over the Mid-West generously supported the event by donating raffle prizes and taking tables at the lunch – making it a resounding success.

Speaking at the lunch, CEO, St. Gabriel’s Treasa McAuliffe said “I was delighted to be able to show the proposed concept of our new South City Team building at the lunch today. The building will be completely transformed. The €7million euro development will be the focus of our fundraising for this year and next and we hope to have the building completed and ready for families in 2026.  We are very grateful for the support we have received from the JP McManus Foundation to get the project off the ground. This building will make a huge difference to the children we are working with in the South City area. We can’t wait for the build to commence,” she said.

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Treasa added that it was thanks to the hard-working volunteer committee and everyone that sponsors prizes and buys tickets that this event continues to be a success. “St. Gabriel’s is very lucky to have such dedicated support when it comes to organising events like these. This year, our volunteer committee of Agnes Bouchier-Hayes, Rita Geary and Lucia Randles have brought all this together and we simply could not run events like this without them. Donations from events like today help us to enhance the services. Every single donation makes a difference. We are very grateful for the support.”

St. Gabriel’s Foundation provides clinical services to approximately 1,600 children in the Limerick region and the numbers continue to grow. The organisation leads two Children’s Disability Network Teams, one based in Dooradoyle and another based in the South of the City. An out-reach clinic is now open in Charleville so families who live in south county Limerick can access services closer to their home.

The teams deliver a range of specialist services working with children with complex needs from birth to 18 years to address key areas in a child’s development such as functional skills, communication/behaviour support, emotional regulation and language development.

St. Gabriel’s Special School educates 64 children with complex physical and medical needs. The organisation also operates two social enterprises at the Dooradoyle campus – an Orthotics clinic and a Hydrotherapy Pool – both of which provide specific support services to children and adults and both can be accessed by the wider community. The Children’s Respite House is located in Moneteen, Mungret, Co. Limerick and provides overnight nursing led care to children with complex medical needs in the Mid-West.

Find further details about the work that St Gabriel’s
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Pictures: Olena Oleksienko/ilovelimerick