Nenagh duo to volunteer at Special Olympics
A NENAGH woman who has spent close to half a century training children in athletics is preparing to take up a role as a volunteer at the Special Olympics World Games being held in Berlin later this year.
Mary Shiels is being joined by her adult daughter Ciara Kennedy, and now they have both embarked on a fundraising campaign to raise the required sum stipulated in order to play a vital part in the major sporting event in the Germany city from June 17-24.
Mary and Ciara will be acting as part of the backup team to the athletes, which will see over 7,500 competitors from all over the world compete in a huge range of competitions ranging for track and field to basketball, football, and a plethora of other sports.
Both mother and daughter have dedicated much of their lives to training children in athletics with the local club, Nenagh Olympic, and also in the special games sector.
Both of them have volunteered to help out at almost every Special Olympic World Games staged over the past twenty years. They started when the games were hosted by Ireland back in 2003. While they missed out on the following games four years later, they were stewards again when the major sporting fixture was hosted in Athens in 2011 and they travelled to Los Angeles for the following games in 2015.
Ciara wasn't available for the next games hosted in Abu Dhabi in 2019, but Mary again stepped up to the challenge and says she is now aiming to round off her international volunteering efforts with what she asserts will be her final games as a steward in Berlin in June.
LAST SHOT
“I'm looking forward to giving it one last shot before I hang my boots up,” Mary told this newspaper. “We both really enjoy volunteering because it gives us the opportunity to meet athletes and their families from all over the world. It's really a brilliant experience.”
Mary and Ciara are among 65 volunteers who will be travelling with the Irish team of 73 athletes, and will be based at a complex hosting events such as table tennis, bocce, badminton, judo, voleyball, basketball and gyumnastics.
Mary's involvement in fostering a love of athletics in children goes way back to the days when Ciara was competing as a child with Nenagh Olympic over four decades ago. Mary's core value of giving back to the community rubbed off on Ciara as she grew up. Now, both of them have been turning up for years to help train children at weekly sessions with the local athletics club.
“I find helping out with the children keeps me active and feeling young. I get fantastic satisfaction out of it,”says Mary, who has no intention of giving up on her local efforts.
Mary also volunteers occasionally with the local Ormond Special Olympics Club, and she and Ciara regularly travel to Limerick to help out at the Special Olympics club based in the city. They have also being stewards for many years at special games held throughout the Munster region.
They say one their greatest pleasures from their volunteer roles is to see the competitors live out the motto of the Special Olympics itself: “Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”
FUNDS NEEDED
With Mary and Ciara each needing to raise €3,800 to be part of the games in Berlin, they are now planning a series of fundraising events over the coming months, the first a raffle in the Obama Plaza in Moneygall on Friday, February 17. A coffee morning in Nenagh is being staged in the Abbey Court Hotel on Wednesday, April 5, from 10am to 12.30pm, and Mary and Ciara are also handing out sponsorship cards. “All donations are welcome,” they say.
Mary retired in 2021 after 50 years working, mostly in the hotel industry. Ciara works as a Special Needs Assistant in Ballinree National School and with Enable Ireland in Nenagh. Yet, despite being very busy over all the years in their own personal careers, they still have managed to find the hours to enhance the lives of young people involved in sport at so many levels - all done for for nothing but the pure love of it.