St Munchins Community Centre sleep-in fundraiser

Pictured: (background) Volunteers, Margaret Hanley, Mary Duffy, Rose Joyce, Anne O’Neill and (front) Linda Ledger, St Munchin’s Community Centre manager.

St Munchin’s Community Centre, Kileely Court, held a sponsored sleep-in on June 26, from 7am – 7pm, to raise funds and support for the Centre, with sponsor cards having been made available.

The Community Centre, managed by Linda Ledger, was established in 2005 and plays a role in encouraging and promoting community involvement within the Parish. The Centre, which staffs 140 people, some on training schemes and others directly employed, aims to provide a space for local community and voluntary groups, addresses social exclusion of the elderly in the community and responds to local needs.

The aim of St Munchins Community Centre sleep-in fundraiser is to encourage support and raise funds for the Centre’s running costs, with a number of people from the community donating their time and rolling out sleeping bags in the Centre’s hall.

Speaking about the sleep-in, Linda said: “The support from the community has been phenomenal. The collection will continue until July 3, so hopefully we’ll get more donations by then”.

“So far, we’re raised around €5,000, and we’ve been donated a strimmer for the grounds from a woman in St. Mary’s Park. We’ve also been inundated with volunteers to help us get the graveyard back in shape”.

The Centre is funded and supported by FÁS Limerick City Council and the HSE, and while the core activities of the centre would not be possible without this continued funding, the costs of running the Centre are high and not fully covered. “The running costs are high because we’re open from 3.30am until 10pm, we open every Saturday and we do one Sunday a month. The Department of Social Protection are great, but we’re basically run on Social Enterprise.”

“We do an awful lot of activities that we’re not funded for. People think we’re very well funded but we’re not. Just running the grounds for a week costs about €2,000, so the sleep-in is about raising funds to run the Centre”.

The Centre has seen a lot of support from outside sources and has received a generous amount from JP McManus: “JP McManus is our backbone, he’s been brilliant. They’ve just helped to fund the new day-care room that will be built on sometime in the future”.

Social Enterprise, a business model that centres around promoting people and the community in a commercially viable and sustainable way, has also been of benefit to the Centre, helping to fund the Meals on Wheels service.

The aim of providing this service is not only to deliver meals, but also to check up on the elderly people in the community who may be isolated. This services is in standing with the Centre’s ethos; to address the exclusion of the elderly in the community.

Donations can be made to the Centre until July 3, and any amount is always greatly appreciated. For more information on where to donate, call the Centre at 061 458 651.

To visit the St Munchin’s Community Centre website, click here

Check out the St Munchin Community Centre Facebook page here

Read more about St Munchin’s Community Centre here

Photos by Frances Fitzgerald, for I Love Limerick. All Rights Reserved.