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Ballina locals Laura Ruane, husband Declan and their daughter Kiah delivered a van full of donations to Simon Community in Galway with the help of Ballina residents in December. The donations will go to clients of Simon Community in Galway who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
Laura and Declan put out an appeal to family, friends and neighbours through Facebook and through Declan’s business, Currentworx Electrical Services. “Once the donations started coming in, we realised that there was a lot more than we had expected”, says Laura, “the support from everyone in Ballina was just great and we were able to gather up a lot of clothes, toys and useful items including a cot, two car seats, two buggies and lots of baby accessories. We’d like to thank everyone who supported the appeal”.
The appeal was so successful that its organiser plans to turn it into an annual appeal “in the end we had received so many donations from people in Ballina and we think we can make it bigger and better next year”, Laura explains, “people really wanted to donate and get involved because everybody knows the homeless situation has got a lot worse over the last year and we all just wanted to do something to help. Our motto in life is never look down on anyone unless you are helping them up”.