‘Blowdryathon’ to help raise funds for AsIAm

A WALKINSTOWN salon has come up with an inventive way to raise money for charity and celebrate its fifth anniversary next Saturday.

A ‘blowdryathon’ will take place at Everleigh Hair Design on Walkinstown Green in aid of AsIAm, as the team behind the hairstyling celebrates half a decade in business, and people will be able to come in and get a blow-dry from 9am to 2pm, with more on from then until 6pm.

It is noted that €1,000 has already been raised for the charity through fundraising efforts that have kicked off in advance of the big day. The charity chosen to be paired with the birthday celebrations came from family connections of the staff, according to owner Leanne Carpenter.

AsIAm is Ireland’s autism charity and is an autistic-led organisation that aims to build a more inclusive society in which every autistic individual can reach their own personal potential and fully participate.

Leanne said: “There’s a couple of the girls that have children with autism, so AsIAm came to mind, and even then, it’s a thing that I think most people are affected by it, or their families are.

“I think AsIAm being unfunded and being solely reliant on people to fundraise [meant] it was a good one to do.

“We’ve got brilliant raffle prizes from loads of local businesses – we have a big raffle on the day, we have a DJ in. We’ll be doing blow-drys from 9am to 2pm.

“Any money taken in on the day, whether its retail, people getting their hair done, people buying raffle tickets, people just donating. We have QR codes around the salon.”

A nail artist will be applying stickers onto kids’ nails, and a makeup artist will also have a station on the day. Both of these will be donation-based.

Other things on the day include 50 goodie bags for the first 50 people that come into the salon and games including spin the wheel, where people can win prizes like a new hairbrush.

The price for a straight blow-dry at the salon is €22 and on the day every cent will go to AsIAm, while there will be some financial incentives for those who walk into Everleigh as well.

Leanne paid tribute to her staff set to help her at the fundraising event and described them as “amazing” as she reflected on five years in business.

“I never really planned on [Everleigh] growing legs the way it did. Thank God it did! It was always my hope to but I never realized it actually would.

“Now, we have a team of 12, and 12 sections in the salon, fully booked most of the time, really busy.

“The girls are amazing, I couldn’t do it without them. Credit to them more so than me, I’m just here for the ride.”