€10,278,465 was raised in 2017 for Good Causes all over Ireland by National Lottery players in Limerick.
Premier Lotteries Ireland, operator of the National Lottery, has released its trading results for 2017 which shows a total of €226 million was raised for Good Causes at a rate of €620,000 a day.
This funding is now making a vital impact to hundreds of individuals, clubs and organisations in County Limerick and throughout the rest of the country.
Among the organisations to benefit in recent years from National Lottery Good Causes funding is the Northside Family Resource Centre in Ballynanty.
Creative therapists use art and play at the family resource centre to invoke in those attending their counselling sessions the true articulation of their feelings. The practice is especially useful in helping children but adults also find this form of therapy particularly helpful at the most difficult times in their life. In all, there are six counsellors at the Northside Family Resource centre in Ballynanty, Limerick, with two of those being creative therapists.
“With funding of €7,000 from the National Lottery, we were able to initiate this counselling service and it’s become one of our busiest services here at the centre,” Mary Mulcahy of the Northside Family Resource Centre explained.
“Families are dealing with so much heartache and the counselling sessions enable us to help the adults and by doing so we’re also helping the children.”
Previously known as the St Munchin’s Family Resource Centre, this invaluable facility offers family supports across the board from programmes in parenting to secondary school readiness, a parent and baby group and the centre’s family support worker is available for one-to-one work with parents.
There are also specific programmes too aimed at helping men and women such as the Young Mothers programme and a Men’s Shed group. Art, crafts, cookery, gardening, flower arranging, beauty care, hairdressing and beginner’s computer courses are available through the centre’s adult community education classes.
And for older locals, the Northside Family Resource centre offers a meals-on-wheels service, transport, weekly social clubs, home cleaning and maintenance, a senior alert scheme and general care.
National Lottery chief executive Dermot Griffin, said: “We are delighted to announce that more than €10.2 million in National Lottery Good Causes funding was raised by our Limerick players. It is also great to hear stories such as these of the impact and change that Good Causes funding is making in Limerick communities and to the sport of boxing too.”
Nearly 30 cent in every €1 spent on National Lottery games go back to Good Causes.
