Welcome, welcome, come on in and witness the events of the
days that have recently passed and the many thanks I have to offer for the help
I have received over them!
So the fundraising gig happened in The Twisted Pepper last
Friday and what a night it was! I have so many thank yous to make and I’d like
to start with the bands who there would have been no music without! I had so
many people coming up to me saying how good they thought the bands were so my
thanks goes out to UpBeat, The Mariannes and Broken-Vice who also brought
equipment for a backline so I wouldn’t have to hire a whole one so double
thanks to them. You’ll find links to all their music at the bottom of this
blog. J
The Twisted Pepper were also so easy
to organise the gig with. This was my first time organizing a gig from scratch
by myself and the Body Tonic staff, Eoin and Emily, were so helpful with all my
questions and always responded promptly. They also calmed me down when I was
panicking! There was no cost to hire the venue, just €150 that was to be paid
for their sound engineer, Josh, and he was brilliant too!
I would have been running around frantically on the night if
it wasn’t for my sister Nicola who worked on the door for me, greeting everyone
with her charm and my mam Carmel for being MC on the night and opening up the
night with a few songs so thank you ladies! And thanks to my uncle Rob for
getting the drum kit to me and Session Hire & Sales for hiring out the rest
of what I needed for the back line at a really cheap rate. The raffle went down
a storm as people ran for the bottle of Whiskey on offer (won by one very lucky
Joe!). I’d like to thank Lannigan’s and The Boar’s Head pubs in Dublin for
their sponsorship as well as Edele Barnwell, Nicola Carney and Michelle
McCormack for donating gifts as prizes too. And of course I’d like to thank
EVERYONE who came along as without you guys, I wouldn’t have raised anything so
thank you Saoirse, Kirsty, James, Michelle, Andy, J
Now I never had time to update you after the two days bag
packing in SuperValu as I was whisked off to Dublin straight away for the gig!
But I’m ecstatic to let you know we raised €545.18 from only two days there
with maximum of four tills open at a time and mostly just 2 of us packing at a
time! (And may I just add the first day was very very quiet too! :O )I couldn’t
of done this without my kind helpers so thank you Mam, Kate and Chloe and
special thanks goes to my little brother Seán who stuck around with me all day
Friday and helped me pack, even though he only did it because he had nothing
else to do or anywhere to go, I do really appreciate it. (",)
People were so generous with their change and donations and
I got many well wishes for the excursion that really touched my heart. There
were a good few people who donated €5 each which I thought was wonderful and
two people I know, Symone and Esther, donated €10 each (you mad things :P ) but
there was this one mammy and her son that was about 6 or 7 years old that
almost made me cry with their sincere generosity. The boy was very shy but
wanted to help out packing the bags so I gave him little jobs to do and he was
delighted. The mother was asking about the fundraising and said how much of a
good cause it was and donated €7 to “get me started on my way” and then turned
to her son saying “You have money you could donate to the girl don’t you? Change
in your pocket?” and he looked so shy but had the cutest smile on his face and
took out about €4 worth of change from his pocket. Now remembering being that
age myself and how great having any money was- as your income is pretty low- I
didn’t want him donating like his mother was encouraging him, I’d feel so
guilty! Seeing his mother wasn’t going to leave with him making a donation I
encouraged him to throw in one of the smaller coins as his mam was cheerfully
saying “You’ve got to start doing these things when you’re young!” The boy then
walked over to the collection bucket and dropped all his change in. I couldn’t believe it! I felt awful that he had
given me all the money in his pocket but he had a shy smile on his face the
entire time and his mam made sure to congratulate him in doing a good thing. I
know this may sound like no big deal but I seriously felt like crying at the
time. So, the least I could do was tell them I have a blog they can follow and
when I’m in Africa they’ll see the things I’m doing and animals I’m working
with and hopefully remember they helped me get there. She then asked me to
write the blog address on her receipt which I did and so I really hope they do
find this and see how much such kind hearted people are appreciated. Especially
when you see a mother teaching her son to be so kind, it really was so lovely!
It’s amazing how little acts of kindness like that can really brighten your day
and stay with you to turn to memories that can cheer you up in an instant when
you remember them.
Thank you all for your help so far, it means so much to me.
And the time comes to announce how much we've risen so far!
Drum roll please dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum!. . . One
thousand four hundred and twenty euro! Over half way there!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!! Thank you thank you thank you. :D
I have no set plans yet for more fundraising activities. In
the meantime please share around the blog and I’m open to anyone who would like
to donate, they can do so through online banking (contact me for the details!)
or through the PayPal link at the top of the page. My 20th birthday
is next Tuesday so if anyone was to give a gift, that would be it! :P Also, I’m
back in the market doing my FacePainting so if you know of an event or anything
I can work at let me know, I’ve a lot of saving to do. . .
The next you’ll be hearing of me will most likely be my
experience with all the vaccinations I have to get L
Eeeek! And I don’t really enjoy big needles in my arms to be honest, but I
can’t be infecting you all with rabies when I get back o.O Wish me luck!
Ceara (:
<3
PS. If you were at the gig and like what you heard, check out the links to the bands below and have a listen to their music! :)
The Mariannes ~ http://www.breakingtunes.com/themariannes
Broken-Vice ~ http://www.youtube.com/user/BrokenVice?feature=mhee
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