All About Cork: No plans to go national with Rainbow Club despite queries

The founder of the Rainbow Club has revealed she is often approached to replicate the charity and its services in counties across Ireland.

The Rainbow Club provides and services for more than 1,300 autistic children and their families every week.

The Mahon-based charity, which was recently granted its own premises in the local area, is seen as a vital service and is attended by families from across the local community and wider Cork.

Karen O’Mahony, the charity’s founder, recently revealed that she is often asked to open similar clubs across Ireland.

However, the club’s mission first is to ensure it continues providing top quality services before any expansion plans come to fruition.

“Often I am ed about the possibility of opening Rainbow Clubs around the country,” Karen said in a statement.

“We would absolutely love to do that and will in the future, but for now we need to ensure that as a charity we are fulfilling our mission and goals.

“We need to ensure we can also be sustainable in parts of the charity ensuring our future.

“Expansion is wonderful but as the CEO, I won’t risk what we have built spreading ourselves too thin and diluting ourselves,” she added.

Karen revealed she has been tempted to expand in the past but she has always held back.

“If we scale too fast we can lose our mission and that cost to our families is too high.

“Our future is bright and we will absolutely expand and scale but only when it’s safe to do so.

“We already families from all around Munster, not just Cork city.

“Will we go further? Yes, when we are ready to do so.

“Rainbow Club is a wonderful model with a child centered approach that is holistic and has a significant impact on lives.

“For now, over 1,300 families get the benefits of us and with our year old SLA (service agreement) with the HSE, this also gives 160 families a year access to our .”

Call to rejuvenate old housing

Local city councillor Peter Horgan (Labour) has urged those interested in utilising housing schemes to bring properties back into use to avail of them, citing that he has been told there is no cap on the amount of properties to be included in the schemes.

“It was heartening to hear from the Director of Services that there is no cap on the number of properties to bring under the repair and lease scheme and buy and renew as the council seeks to expand this further,” said Mr Horgan.

“The most sustainable and affordable home is one that’s already built, and the spend per property shows that affordable factor can be achieved by bringing properties back into use. It’s critical that we entice people to utilise these schemes to bring properties back and turn them back into homes.

“It’s particularly welcome that at the moment this is not dependent on the incoming government being formed and is being driven by the Department and the housing directorate in Cork City Council.”

Blackrock coffee morning

Large gatherings of players, mentors and ers continue to attend the monthly coffee mornings held on the last Friday of the month at Blackrock National Hurling Club on Church Road.

The most recent gathering took place on November 29.

This meeting also hosted the launch of a Christmas charity event which will take place in the club on Friday, December 20.

The charities to benefit this year are The School of the Divine Child (Lavanagh Centre) and the Cork branch of Parkinson’s Ireland.

The event will take place at Blackrock Hurling Club at 8pm on December 20, with live music and a raffle on the night. Tickets are €10 on the door.

The final coffee morning of the year will take place on December 27.

Scoil Ursula principal retires

Scoil Ursula Blackrock has bid a fond farewell to principal Linda Keane, who recently announced her retirement from the school.

A celebration in Mrs Keane’s honour was held on Tuesday, November 26.

Scoil Ursula’s deputy principal Liz Cronin said Mrs Keane “left an indelible mark on all the staff, parents and pupils of Scoil Ursula and will be greatly missed”.

“We wish her all the best for the future.”

Shortest day is closing in

Cork and Ireland are set to experience the shortest day of the year, with the winter solstice almost upon us.

Blackrock Castle Observatory’s ‘Your guide to Ireland’s skies’ outlined the reason for the annual event, and revealed how early we can expect to see the sun set on December 21.

“On December 21, we will experience the winter solstice, marking the shortest day and longest night of the year,” the observatory’s guide stated.

“This happens when the earth is tilted farthest away from the sun in the northern hemisphere.

“It also marks the beginning of astronomical winter. Here in Ireland, this gives us just about seven hours and 45 minutes of daylight.

“For anyone visiting us here at Blackrock Castle, in Cork we would see sunrise at 8.39am and sunset at 4.25pm.

“This should provide ample hours for some evening stargazing over the winter holidays, if the weather permits.”

Final clean-up of the year

The Blackrock Clean-Up Group is preparing to undertake its last clean-up event of the year.

The group, which meets once a month, has made a positive impact on the amount of litter in the local area this year. The next clean-up will take place on Saturday from 10am-12pm.

“Meeting at Blackrock Castle car park at 10am with refreshments at the Castle Café afterwards,” a spokesperson for the group said.

“Under 18s must be accompanied by an adult.”

Funds raised for Focus Ireland

A group of young local people presented a cheque to Focus Ireland last week following fundraising efforts undertaken earlier this year.

The group of 22 teenagers, ranging in age from 15 to 18, who attend the Mahon UBU Project, formerly known as the SPY Project, took part in an ‘awake-athon’ in conjunction with the Shine-A-Light campaign in October, with the aim of raising funds for Focus Ireland.

The group raised €1,037 which will go towards care and services provided by Focus Ireland.

Speaking to The Echo, Becky O’Connell, youth worker at Mahon UBU, said: “They [the teens] were delighted to have made that much of an impact and Cian Dalton from Focus Ireland was there to accept the cheque.

“It [the ‘awake-athon’] was such a success; the young people were just amazing. They stayed awake for 12 hours in the youth centre on the night.

“They really got into the shoes of people experiencing homelessness, which was a big thing for us, for young people to understand that homelessness isn’t too far from anyone.”

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