PICTURES: Social hurlers cook up fundraiser in aid of Tipperary Meals on Wheels

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A major fundraising event in aid of Tipperary Meals on Wheels took place recently at the Abbey CBS Astro Turf pitch.

The West Tipperary Social Hurling Tournament involved 14 social hurling teams with 21 matches played throughout the day. The attendance was treated to 5 hours of hurling along with a wall ball competition for the children. 

The event was organised to raise funds to help replace the kitchen floor in the Tipperary Community Services Centre. This project will cost in the region of €8,000 and the proceeds from the social hurling event will go towards the project. 

Tipperary Town Meals on Wheels service operates from Tipperary Community Services Centre and currently delivers an average of 120 meals per day to the Tipperary Town and 10km catchment area. The Meals on Wheels service is available to everyone who wishes to avail of the service. They deliver to the elderly, but also to anyone who is living alone, anyone recovering at home from illness or surgery, or anyone who does not have the resources to cook a daily hot meal and would just like a daily hot meal delivered. 

The service comes under Section 39 funding as they provide a service for the HSE. This funding is vital but only covers about 10% of the overall Meals on Wheels costs. The charge for a Meals on Wheels daily delivery of soup, dinner and dessert is only €5 per person. This challenges the service to source raw materials at the best possible price while equally maintaining a high quality of homemade food and service. The service is indebted to the Food Cloud programme for some of those raw materials weekly. The service is supported by 16 CE scheme staff and they have three full time staff and one full time volunteer. 

Fundraising and donations play a huge part in keeping the service functioning, especially the costs of keeping the commercial kitchen up to the highest standards and regulations required. To help with some of the costs they operate a community café which serves tea, coffee, homemade scones and buns. The café is open to everyone and has become a social outlet, as much as a restaurant for many of their customers. 

Over the last few years, they have been upgrading the building but in particular the kitchen. The final part of the plan is to upgrade the flooring from old ceramic tiles to non-slip, hygienic commercial kitchen flooring.

The event on 'Little Christmas' drew a large crowd to the beautiful new astro turf pitch at the Abbey School. Thank you to Brian English, manager of the Tipperary Community Services Centre, and his team for looking after the catering requirements on the day. To Billy Ryan and Eddie Moroney for coordinating the teams and matches, and to Stevie O'Donnell for the excellent online coverage. Thank you also to Brendan Crowe and Frankie O'Dwyer for stewarding the car park and to all at the Abbey School for the use of their excellent facilities.

Lastly a huge thanks to the West Tipp Slashers who were behind this event. They are a great bunch of lads and a pleasure to play social hurling with every week. Social hurling is for players over the age of 40 and for some players who have spent well over 25 years playing at all levels for their respective clubs. It's an opportunity to continue playing in a non-competitive atmosphere. Anyone who wants to join the social hurling group should get in contact with Billy Ryan. The GoFundMe page for the event is still open and the Meals on Wheels Service would really appreciate your support. If you wish to support and donate, please use the following link.