National Heritage Week 2020

When Covid-19 struck we, like 600 other Foróige clubs, and much of the world, had to stop. Forced to close our doors and end our weekly meetings in the local Community Centre, we were worried our young members would suffer without the ability to meet up with their friends each week at our club. We therefore quickly sourced some online training and upskilled in ways to continue our club online, using Zoom. This proved extremely popular, and we are delighted with the fact we were able to keep in contact with our members during the lockdown.

Mayo News Louisburgh Local Notes

Each week our members would come up with a new challenge for the week ahead. The first of these challenges was that all the members would write a short note that would be delivered to an elderly person in the community. The letter would simply say how their experience with the lockdown was and how they are feeling about being in lockdown and that they hoped the recipient was doing ok.

We had no idea how well these simple letters would be received. The joy that both members and the recipients received was really overwhelming. This simple challenge just proved to show the true value of a small act of kindness.

Our members did not stop there with their appreciation for their community. Following on from the letters the members decided to send their appreciation to all the local front-line workers. Once again, they made a thank you card simply saying thank you to everyone who was risking their lives by providing services to the public in our community.

Cards were sent out to all the businesses in Louisburgh which opened their doors providing their invaluable services to the community, such as; our local Doctor surgeries continuing their essential work, Staunton All Care Pharmacy providing essential medication and support to the community, our Priest Fr. Long who continued performing weekly Sunday Mass online, the Louisburgh Order of Malta who continue to provide such an incredible service to our community while also along with our GAA club delivered food from our supermarkets and butcher who kept their doors opened to those who could not leave their homes, to our local Undertaker Mr. Peter Sweeny for what must be an incredibly hard and challenging service at this time and our Meals on Wheels service who continued to provide nourishment and a friendly face to our elderly community.

There was some amazing community work done in our community and we are so proud of our young members for reaching out and acknowledging their tremendous dedication and hard work.

Our final project during our lockdown term is what we think will be a very exciting and truly interesting community project “Louisburgh Community Time Capsule”

Louisburgh Foroige Time Capsule

The young people of Louisburgh Foróige want in some small way to preserve and document what is happening right now during these strange and worrying times in everyone’s daily lives during 2020. Each participant will have their own separate capsule. These will be cylinder in shape 300mm (one foot) long by 100mm (four inches) in diameter and the contents of each capsule will be completely private. The capsule will be buried locally in Louisburgh in January 2021. In 2031 only the person who made the capsule or their next of kin will have access to their capsule. To see more information on this exciting project check out Louisburgh Foróige web page http://www.louisburghforoige.com/timecapsule.html

Along with the time capsule, we have one other amazing project that we have put a year’s research into, all to be revealed soon!

All good things must come to an end and, after 26 weeks in club and 11 weeks online, we finished up our phenomenally successful club for the summer break. Zoom has been a real learning experience and proved that the young people of our community know far more about all this online stuff than the leaders do.

We are super proud of each and every one of our members, from our giddy get the job done first years to our super grown up Axis crew, thank you all for keeping us active, entertained and educated since last September.

Content of Thank you card

Foroige Thank You Card