Galway Rural Development (GRD ) are today marking their 30th anniversary with a day of celebration at the Bia-Innovator Campus in Athenry. An invitation has been extended to all former staff, directors, and friends by Chairperson Cllr Pete Roche who will be paying tribute to all those who have made a contribution to the organisation over the years.
Various guests have been invited to mark the occasion, including Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív who will by the guest of honour. Speaking ahead of the event, Cllr Roche highlighted the role of volunteers and now retired staff to the story of GRD, including former CEOs Eamon Kealy and Delia Colahan, who will speak on the day.
Cllr Roche said “We stand on the shoulders of giants in GRD, and our 30th anniversary is a perfect time to pay tribute to the many great women and men who have played a part in our history. We wanted a day to say thank you to all those past and current staff, to directors, supporters, partners, clients, and funders. Each has played a vital role, and all have made a difference.”
“In GRD, we continue to provide a range of critical community supports by administering LEADER, the Social Inclusion Community Activation Programme (SICAP ), the Rural Social Scheme (RSS ) and Tús Programmes, a Community Employment (CE ) Scheme, the ParentChild+ programme, as well as having staff seconded to the HSE to support migrant projects and social prescribing.
“This year, we were also happy to commence the new WorkAbility programme and, over the coming years, we will be focusing on building the capacity of employers to recruit, retain, and progress people with disabilities into the workforce. That is just one of a number of new programmes we are working on and we have much to look forward to over the next 30 years.”
GRD has grown from humble beginnings in 1994 to become one of the largest local development companies in the country. Today, GRD has a turnover of more than €10m and 500 employees; 65 of whom are full-time with the remainder being participants on schemes. GRD are a registered charity and local development company which exists to serve the Co Galway community.
