Newcastle Lions help homeless with donation to Belfast's Welcome Centre

Newcastle Lions  Club this week helped a homeless charity with a donation of  £250.00, following an attack on its Drop-in Centre which helps people affected by homelessness. On a visit to the Belfast based  Welcome  Centre, at Townsend  Street, Lion  Dan  O'Reilly saw at first hand the tremendous work the group does. As well as going out on the streets of Belfast  at all hours to help people sleeping out. The group provides support services such as housing advice or helping towards medical support.

The group are now in urgent need of toiletries and " brand new still in their packets men and ladies  underwear". The head of marketing and fundraising Kieran  Hughes, said of the Lions donation, " that this has had a real and positive impact on our work and in turn on the lives of the people we support. I am also very happy to say we have just moved into our new Daytime Support Hub – located at the Salvation Army’s Centenary House. Part of the work of the Outreach  team is to help people sleeping rough in  Belfast. The team are on the streets of the  city from 7am to 2 am everyday of the year. You can call them on 07894931047 (7am -2am) or 07851246814 (8am -2am)  In the interim we encourage anyone seeking support to contact us on 028 90 24 04 24 for advice and direction."

Newcastle Lion Dan  O'Reilly presents a cheque for  £250.00 to  Belfast Welcome Centre's Kieran  Hughes

Newcastle Lions thrilled with public support for spectacles project

In his address to Newcastle Lion  members at their first meeting on  Tuesday, Lion President  John  McDonagh said having helped to pack glasses dispatched to  France , that this was a wonderful example of the  Circular  Economy in action where we try to minimise waste, in this case spectacles. John also thanked the people of  Clough and  Newcastle for their fantastic financial support over the  Christmas period. As a result of this the Lions are now distributing the money raised by making donations to various groups.

On  Monday  John met up with four other Lion members to sort and pack glasses and cases. This would not have been possible with out the generosity of  Newcastle shops including  Saltrock, Regatta and  Essence who provided  strong boxes. As a result of recent spectacle collections just under  2,000 pairs of glasses and a large number of  spectacle cases were dispatched.

The glasses come from various location where collection bins are available, including our library,  GPs, and the opticians McGloins, Judith  Long Clough  Health  Centre and  Specs- Express and Eye  World  Kennedy  Centre  Belfast ,as well as the four  Belfast  City  Council recycling  centres. Having dispatched the glasses to  Lions  Medico France, the glasses are sorted and cleaned. Lion  Clubs all over the world then request these to help people in need. 

Newcastle Lion members,  Irene  Martin, President  John  Mc Donagh, Frank  McGreevy and  Terry  O'Reilly sort and pack glasses.

Seven large boxes containing  nearly  2,000 pairs of glasses bound for France.

Newcastle Lions Club December Fundraising

Newcastle Lions Club would like to thank all those who supported their fund-raising efforts during December. Collections outside Eurospar Castlewellan Road, Tesco supermarket and Barbican Dundrum Road Newcastle and Eurospar Clough were all very well supported and along with the raffles for hampers and bottles of wine at the Christmas Dinner Dances in the Burrendale Hotel the amazing sum of over £3000 was raised from all these events. 

In addition thanks to the Quiz night held at the Harbour House Inn Newcastle on Friday 20th December over £475 was raised for Mourne Grange in Kilkeel.

The club would like to thank Tesco and Lidl for their contributions to the hampers and Eurospar Newcastle and Clough, Tesco , Barbican, Burrendale Hotel and the Harbour House Inn for allowing them to use their premises for the fund raising efforts. It is hoped that presentation of cheques to charities including Mourne Mountain Rescue and Mourne Grange can take place shortly.

Lions Club President John McDonagh outside Eurospar in Clough.

Marion Mcgreevy , 1st District Grosvenor Lions Club Ireland and her husband Lions Club Member, Frank McGreevy outside the SuperValu.

Lions Club members Virginia Hughes and Chris Davies outside Tesco