In 2020, NUI Galway students Felix O Murchadha and John Flannery raised €1,729 for Galway Simon Community through their innovative ‘Helping Haircuts’ initiative. The student duo spent the year fundraising and raising awareness to remove the stigma surrounding homelessness in Galway.
Felix and John wanted to do something practical to support those facing homelessness in Galway and set out to provide free haircuts and grooming to men supported by our services in February last year. A number of fundraising events were originally planned for the ‘Helping Haircuts’ initiative but sadly had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. However, this didn’t stop the dynamic duo, but instead it served to motivate them even further to do what they could to help.
Despite the challenging year, they continued to raise funds and awareness through their online fundraising page and social media presence. In addition to this, they also secured much needed PPE and sanitizer from a local pharmacy on our behalf. In December 2020, the student duo also ran an innovating fundraising campaign called ‘Suit up for Simon’ which called on people to get suited up in formal wear for dinner at home with their housemates or families, to post about it on social media and to make a donation to Galway Simon. Watch the video below which was put together for the Suit up for Simon initiative.
The ‘Helping Haircuts’ initiative has raised €1,729 to date which has been donated to our Health & Well-being Fund.
Amy Lavelle, Community & Youth Partnerships Coordinator at Galway Simon Community linked in closely with Felix and John throughout the year and praised them for their hard work.
“We are deeply grateful to have been the chosen charity for this brilliant initiative and we can’t thank the students enough for creating ‘Helping Haircuts’ to raise much needed funds for our frontline services. Their motivation to raise awareness and funds in support of those facing homelessness in these difficult times has been truly inspiring”, Amy said.
At Galway Simon Community, we believe that young people in particular have the potential to be powerful catalysts for social change and were delighted to have Felix and John get behind those in our community facing homelessness. We want to thank Felix and John who worked tremendously hard to raise awareness and vital funds for our services. Thank you also to everyone who got involved with the ‘Helping Haircuts’ initiative and donated along the way.
You have helped to make a difference in the lives of others facing homelessness within our community!
Check out the Helping Haircuts pages below for more information.