Iconic SHARE crib marks 50 years raising funds funds for city charity

WELL-known charity SHARE is marking its 50th year raising funds to improve the lives of Cork’s older population.

As is tradition at Christmas, Cork secondary school students have donned the distinctive yellow jackets and are doing their utmost to raise as much money as possible for the people the charity supports.

Students Harness Aid for the Relief of the Elderly (SHARE ) has been taking to the streets of Cork since the early 1970s.

What began as a group of students from Presentation Brothers College has now widened to an extensive list of Cork secondary schools participating in the Christmas appeal.

In December 1974, the street collectors managed to raise £7,011 for Cork’s senior citizens and combined with money they had raised before December totalled a staggering £14,000.

In a letter to The Echo, chairman Niall O’Donovan stated: “One cannot easily experience the standard of sharing which we witnessed last week and remain unaffected by it.

“In fact, the whole response served as a lesson which we will not easily forget. It was for us a humbling experience.”

The charity’s landmark crib was once again unveiled in the city centre earlier this month.

The Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Kieran McCarthy switched on the lights of the crib while Bishop Fintan Gavin and Bishop Paul Colton both blessed the structure.

Speaking at the time of the launch, the Lord Mayor called on people to support the worthy cause.

“SHARE remains an important annual fundraising effort,” he said. “This annual tradition is an important initiative which the people of Cork have always given to generously.

“In the world that we live in today, it is really important that we leave no one behind in our communities and in society.

“The SHARE project offers so much hope and togetherness,” Mr McCarthy said. “I ask Corkonians to once again dig deep into their pockets and support the values that SHARE stands for.”

SHARE was founded against a “backdrop of societal change”.

Its roots date back to 1970 when a workshop on Christian leadership was organised by Br Jerome Kelly, headmaster of Presentation Brothers College Cork.

“The workshop accommodated the students during the school day and their parents at evening time, with the entire exercise being facilitated by former communist and editor of The Daily Worker, Douglas Hyde.

“In his role as facilitator, Douglas Hyde sought to dispel misconceptions, identify causes of frustration in the world around them and channel the participants’ energies and ideas into reaching out to people in need and being a catalyst for the change they wanted to see,” SHARE said.

“He appealed to their ‘obvious idealism’ and focused their attention on immediate practical realities.”

At the end of the three-day workshop, senior students went out into the city in small groups “to witness with a fresh perspective, the realities facing people in the community and then to determine a way of how to address the social issues being faced”.

“There, they discovered that, overwhelmingly, it was the older people in the community that were facing the greatest disadvantage, living in poor conditions, and experiencing loneliness and isolation,” SHARE said.

The charity was established as a direct outcome of that workshop, founded by Br Kelly and run by the students who set about overcoming these problems. The organisation has evolved over the decades and is now responsible for a wide range of services for older people in the Cork community, including providing supported independent living, daycare centres for clients, and a dementia outreach programme which sees vetted adult volunteers and students visiting people living with dementia.