Volunteers in the Ballybane community delivered 76 Christmas dinners to elderly and vulnerable people on Sunday.
In November, a number of local people in the area, including Cllr Alan Cheevers, met up trying to create a social club.
“If they wanted to come in they could have a cup of tea or coffee,” Cllr Cheevers explains. “We tried to initiate it as more of a social thing.
“One of the things we decided to do was for the vulnerable and elderly in the area was to try to provide a Christmas dinner and maybe fuel, coal or briquettes for some of the residents in the area.”
Businesses supported the venture which proved to be a significant success at the weekend. “Basically we were given sponsorship by a number of businesses in the area, they also provide the produce,” Cllr Cheevers adds. “Then we got two chefs in, Lisa McCoy and Jon Stark, they decided to give us their time, they came in to cook all of the food.
“We identified the people that needed it so we went out to deliver after putting it in takeaway containers. We got all of the produce and on last Sunday we went up to get all of the food cooked.
“By four o’clock it was ready, then we delivered it all. This week we are delivering the briquettes and fuel to different people. It was a great initiative, we felt we wanted to give something back to the community.
“We did 76 dinners this year, what we hope to do next year is to double that, to roll it on year after year. It is going to be an annual event. We also want to thank all of our suppliers for coming out giving us produce to be able to do it and obviously the committee and volunteers. Hopefully we can continue this to give a little bit of respite to old people living alone that might need a bit of help.”
In the new year Cllr Cheevers and the committee intend to host further events. “This won’t just be a Christmas thing, we want to have a place for elderly and vulnerable people where they can come to have a cup of tea and a game of cards,” he says.
“We want to really ramp this up in January, to see how we can do. It gives an outlet to a lot of people, who are living alone. Christmas will be a highlight, but we want to do it other times throughout the year too.”
