Great turnout in Tipperary for Circle of Friends 'Big Pink Breakfast' Fundraiser
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It was a blaze of pink colour as I entered Circle of Friends on Friday, October 28 for “The Big Pink Breakfast”.
The centre is affiliated to the Irish Cancer Society and as part of the society’s national fundraising efforts they asked Circle of Friends to host an event during October, which was Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
The service users came on board to bake lots of cakes and buns and provided a pink theme to the delicacies and all the staff and volunteers dressed in pink for the event.
Centre Manager, Kay Hogan, outlined some of the background to the event.
“We were absolutely delighted with the turnout on the morning. The funds that were raised will all go to the Irish Cancer Society. We will let you know the total funds raised and where the money goes to. That money goes to various areas within the society such as to research and also towards transport costs for people going for chemotherapy.
“The cancer journey itself can prove to be quite costly so as well as being ill there are cost implications for transport to hospital and when you get there there are parking costs, food to eat. Along with transport there are many other hidden costs and costs associated with hair loss such as buying a wig. So we are only too glad to do our bit for the Irish Cancer Society and very grateful to everyone that came on the morning and to all the volunteers who readily jumped at the idea of being able to help out.
“We are in a lovely new building and we are lucky that we have the space to host this event and there was such a buzz around that it is great to be part of it,” said Kay.
Indeed the buzz and the atmosphere was very evident throughout the morning as every person that came through the doors was warmly welcomed and made feel at home.
Kay continued: “We are getting back to normal (after Covid-19) bit by bit.
“We now have our counselling and our complimentary therapies, which are one-to-one, taking place now and I should add that masks can be worn at people’s own discretion.
“We have a very busy month of November. Lots of groups are set up and meeting on a regular basis. We have a choir restarted with Fran Marnane on every second Tuesday and Helen Buckley will be coming in to do sessions on “Time for Me”, which is very important for someone going through cancer. We also have a great mindfulness programme going on here and people are finding it to be greatly beneficial, and we have women’s and men’s support groups which are doing great work and very happy to be part of this confidential process.
“Even though it is a cancer support centre it is not all doom and gloom. There is lots of fun here and people have created new social circles for themselves and have formed friendships and get advice from each other and understand each other’s journey. There is a lovely uplifting atmosphere here the majority of the time and people often smile through their worries. It is good to have fun as you have to have a bit of balance to get through life,” said Kay.
As with any centre like this there is a big emphasis on fundraising and they have a very active fundraising committee who are constantly thinking up of new ideas to raise funds and a separate group that deals with the grant applications. There is a service development group set up to look at different aspects of service development to include the catchment area, which includes west Tipperary and east Limerick.
Kay also wanted to say how important the service is to the area.
“First of all it’s a pleasure to work here. It’s a very important service and if someone comes in and asks us for something that we don’t normally provide we will refer them to the correct service. We really value our service users and all our volunteers because without them this service would simply not exist.
“We are hoping that we will develop it even further. We would like to look at developing further services such as support services for children whose parents have been diagnosed with cancer, to enable them to deal with the different emotions of their parents’ diagnosis.
“We have seen a development here of the therapeutic garden, which will come into its own shortly, and is a wonderful addition to the centre. This was made possible by Boston Scientific as we were their chosen charity and they managed to raise (through lockdown) around €30,000, which was a fantastic achievement. We have a beautiful new pavilion where we hope to hold gardening classes and this will be very therapeutic for people.
“We have pilates here and we started classes in Qi Gong for people’s wellbeing. Classes have a beneficial effect and it can help to quiet a person’s troubled mind during their journey,” concluded Kay.