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350 Club – A Great Big Thank You!!!

Kraineem (09 May 2005)

By Barry O’Halpin

In January of this year, the urgency of updating the sewage system in the parish was brought home to us very forcibly. It became obvious that after looking at and talking about this project for some time, the moment itself had come for action. The problem facing us was to raise the funds necessary to meet the expenses that would be incurred by the work.

In an effort to achieve this, a Fund-Raising committee was established to help to raise some of the money. The idea that the committee came up with was to try to raise the funds through a 350 Club where a limited number of tickets would be offered to the parish and prizes of up to €2,000.00 would be paid out to lucky winners in a series of draws through the month of March. The balance of the money would then go into parish funds.

The timescale was very tight and the task seemed enormous. There were various concerns expressed, especially about the cost of the tickets but through the power of prayer and the outstanding work of many people, the ticket sales got started in late February. For the following five weekends up to Palm Sunday on March 20th, volunteers stood outside the church after all masses in what were sometimes atrocious weather conditions to sell the tickets. 

Their efforts were rewarded with a characteristically generous response from you, the parishioners. We didn’t meet our 350 target. Instead we reached what might be seen as God’s target – exactly 250 tickets sold! This was in itself an outstanding result and meant that half the funds necessary to complete the sewage renovation were secured for the parish. After prizes and expenses were paid out, the total left to the parish was almost €11,500.00. This total allowed the parish’s councils to choose the best solution in the long term to the sewage situation, not simply the cheapest as might have been the case had they been thrown back on working from existing funds.

On behalf of the whole parish, therefore, I would like to thank all of you who bought tickets and supported us in so many ways during this fund-raising effort. Hats off to you. You have kept the streets clean for another generation of worshipers in our wonderful parish! Thank you and God Bless.

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