People in Galway city, Tuam, Ballinasloe and Gort will show their support for the charity GOAL during Christmas by running, walking or crawling the GOAL Mile.
The Galway and Tuam fundraisers take place on Christmas Day - the Galway Mile at the NUIG Sports Grounds at Dangan from 10am to 1pm and the Tuam GOAL Mile at the Rugby Club from 11am to 12 noon. The Ballinasloe Mile will take place on St Stephen’s Day at the Garbally Grounds (Scoil Mhuire entrance ) from 2pm to 3pm while the Gort Mile will take place on January 1 at Coole Park from 1pm to 2pm.
For thousands of families, the annual GOAL fundraiser, now in its 27th year, has become as much a part of their Christmas tradition as mince pies and roast turkey, says Ronan Scully, GOAL’s west of Ireland manager.
“There’s no better way to deal with the excesses of the Christmas season than throwing on a pair of running shoes and doing a lap for GOAL.”
Last year, GOAL Miles took place at 65 locations nationwide making it the biggest GOAL Mile ever. More than €400,000 was collected for the charity’s projects across the developing world.
Mr Scully says this year’s event is going to be even bigger with new fundraising “Miles” taking place in Tuam, Ballinasloe, Belfast, Monaghan, Los Angeles and Abu Dabai.
GOAL is proud of the fact that since being established in 1977 it has strived to keep administration costs low.
“This means that your donations have the maximum possible impact on the lives of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Over the years, GOAL has spent €505 million delivering aid to 50 countries across the developing world.
“In that time we have also sent approximately 1,400 GOALies to work alongside a huge number of local staff to help the world’s poor.”
For futher information about your local GOAL Mile log onto www.goal.ie or call GOAL at (091 ) 587901 or (01 ) 2809779.
