Raise funds for children’s hospital with Snow Angel Challenge
By Mary Dennehy
A LOCAL family has started a Snow Angel challenge in aid of Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, so get nominating your friends and family and help to raise funds for the hospital while the snow lasts.
Springfield native Mark Boland and Amanda Benham, originally from Old Court Road, have started a Snow Angel Challenge in aid of the children’s hospital, which cared for their two children during both of their first years.
Mark and Amanda with Aoife and Liam
According to Mark, who now lives in Rathfarnham: “We wanted to raise money for Crumlin Hospital because both of our kids have been in Crumlin with something life threatening before their first year and both spent time in PICU (Paediatric Intesive Care Unit).
“The most recent was with Liam who was admitted on the 2nd of February.
“He spent four nights in PICU and then 3-and-a-half weeks in St Peter's ward.
“The support, commitment and enthusiam from all who worked with Liam was unbelievable!
“Nurses became mothers to him, staff became friends and his therapist and physios became teachers to him.
“Within a month he was discharged with what we thought would have taken a year.”
Mark and Amanda believe that Liam’s progression was “no doubt” down to the “positivity and dedication” of staff.
“Liam still has a long way to go but we have accepted the challenge and will get through it”, Amanda said.
She added: “Mark is an avid Celtic fan and saw an ex-goalkeeper (Rab Douglas) post a snow Angel challenge so decided to start one in Ireland as nobody has anything else to do while snowed in!
“We hope people can continue the challenge simply to raise funds for the Crumlin Medical Research Foundation (CMRF) and the great work they do.”
The family is encouraging people to accept the challenge, nominate their friends and text CRUMLIN to 50300 to donate €4.
