Limerick's Children's Grief Centre receives €25k national award

THEY SAY bad things come in threes but for the Children’s Grief Centre it has been all good news recently.

Earlier this month, the project set up by Sr Helen Culhane, Croom, was short-listed in the Community Impact Awards. Last week, they were announced as one of ten national recipients of €25,000 in the Animate Fund. It is to develop community projects promoting good health, wellbeing and inclusion.

And on December 9, Owen Gilhooly, tenor and director of the Mid-West Vocal Academy and Music School in Lisnagry, is hosting a fundraising Christmas concert in St Mary’s Cathedral at 8pm. 

Sr Helen says “every cent” will go towards helping the children in their care. 

Located in Westbourne, Ashbourne Avenue, SCR, the Children’s Grief Centre is a free and voluntary organisation that supports children between the ages of four and 18 where parents have separated, divorced or where there has been a bereavement. Since 2009, it has provided a space and place for children to explore their experiences of loss associated with bereavement and parental separation.

The centre was in the midst of a “funding crisis” at the beginning of 2017. They had 120 young persons on their waiting list and the wait to be seen was eight to nine months. Thanks to a €20,000 donation from the JP McManus Benevolent Fund the waiting list has been halved and the wait is three months now.

With the €25,000 from the Animate Fund and €30,000 from Olive Foley, from the sales of a commemorative match day programme following the death of her late and great husband Anthony Foley, Sr Helen and her team can continue their life changing good work.