Sinead’s donate a bear appeal for Ukrainian children

A 16-YEAR-OLD Clondalkin girl initiated an appeal for teddy bears that will be donated to Ukrainian refugee children that are staying at local hotels.

Sinead Kelly, a student at Cólaiste Bride in Clondalkin and a player with Round Tower GAA Club started the initiative as part of a module for her club.

“I am doing the Earley Youth Leadership Initiative with my GAA Club, and for one of my modules I have to do a community action project,” Sinead told The Echo.

“I was thinking about what I could do and I knew I wanted to do something that I was passionate about.

“Towers have been running these inclusion days for the refugees who are staying at local hotels, and they bring them all up to Monastery for three or four hours to get them out of the hotel and there would be food, games and face paint for them.”

Wanting to expand on the inclusion day and help the refugees who have come to the community from Ukraine, Sinead decided to launch an appeal for teddy bears that could be given to the Ukrainian children.

Over 350 teddy bears have been donated for Ukrainian children that are staying in local hotels

“I used to love build-a-bear when I was a child,” she said.

“Some of the kids would get a bit upset when they were walking back to their hotels, so I thought that it would be great if they could have a teddy bear of their own that they could hold and bring back with them.”

Since Sinead launched her appeal, the initiative has grown and developed to outside the GAA club, with over 350 bears donated so far and more expected this Saturday.

“It started initially just within the club, and it has just been spreading more and more,” said Sinead.

“I made a poster up on Friday, and on Saturday I went up to the Tower’s nursery which is for kids aged four to seven.

“I talked to the parents there and explained the idea and said if anyone wanted to drop a bear up to the club shop or the clubhouse during the week they could, so people started dropping them up and we have about 350 bears right now.”

The bears will be given out to the children during the club’s next inclusion day, where they will get to put a ribbon on them and give them a name tag to personalise them and take them home with them.

“We had about 120 kids at the last inclusion day, and I think we are expecting around 200 at the next one so we are hoping to hit that mark,” said Sinead.