Nenagh school fundraiser for farm safety
All are welcome to Nenagh CBS later this month where local students have been working hard on an information campaign close to everyone's heart, that of farm safety.
They've organised a tractor run around Nenagh town and hinterland on Sunday, November 17th. Joined by Donkey from Grassmen and likely to feature as many as 200 tractors, the event will couple with a night of farm safety awareness talks planned to take place at the school in early December. Speakers will include Peter Gohery of national farm accident support network Embrace Farm, local IFA presidential candidate Tim Cullinan, and Imelda Walsh, Chair of North Tipperary IFA. All proceeds from both events will be donated to Embrace Farm.
Sadly, farming accidents have impacted on students and staff at Nenagh CBS over recent years, as has been the case with communities throughout Ireland, where tragedy strikes an average of once every fortnight. Every year the school's Transition Year programme holds fundraising campaigns for national charities – previous recipients included North Tipperary Hospice, the Jack & Jill Foundation, Temple Street Children's Hospital, Mo Chara Animal Rescue and Pieta House.
This year's chosen charity is Embrace Farm, a voluntary group that supports families who have lost a loved one or suffered serious injury in a farming accident. As well as raising funds, the TY team of Patrick Quigley, Jack Gleeson, Paul Seymour, Micheál Ryan and Paul Fogarty will be raising key awareness issues around farm safety.
Working with the teaching staff of Paul Butler, Michele Forde, Paul Dolan, Dermot Brislane and Principal Karen O'Donnell, the team have organised a massive tractor run to draw attention to their cause. It will start out from the CBS grounds at 12pm on Sunday, November 17th (registration at 11am) and will follow a route out to Ballycommon, Kilcolman, Silvermines and Toomevara before returning to the school grounds for a barbeque and raffle.
Gareth Gault, better known as 'Donkey' from world-renowned tractor outfit Grassmen, will join in the run and is sure to make an added attraction for the event.
Welcoming all to this and the December night of talks, the CBS team has already been engaging with Peter Gohery as part of their farm safety appeal. An excellent speaker, Mr Gohery of Eyrecourt, Co Galway, lost his left leg – and very nearly the right one as well – in a farm accident 10 years ago. He considers himself to lucky to have survived and, having since managed to return to farming, has plenty of poignant advice for his peers.
The students are also working on a 10-minute farm safety video that will be shown on the night. The short feature is being made for Embrace Farm to promote farm safety in an imitative that may become part of a national project next year. The students are working with great enthusiasm on this project, in which they discover the reasons charity groups are set up, the work they do and the costs involved. They are hoping to spread the word about the work of Embrace Farm, which is reliant on fundraising and needs more Government support.
For further information and updates, visit the Nenagh CBS Tractor Run page on Facebook.