Representatives from three Laois community organisations, Cuisle Cancer Support, the Abbeyleix Bog Project and Laois Sports Partnership, have presented to the National Lottery Good Causes Awards 2019 judging panel as part of the final process of the competition.
Attention now turns to the Awards event which takes place this Saturday November 2.
The judging panel, chaired by broadcaster and businesswoman Norah Casey, recently spent two days in Athlone meeting the 36 finalists from all over Ireland, who each received their trophy for being a national finalist.
The National Lottery Good Causes Awards honour the inspiring work and achievements of thousands of projects, clubs and individuals from all over Ireland who with the help of National Lottery Good Causes funding have had an extraordinary impact on their local communities.
Nearly 30 cent in every €1 spent on National Lottery games goes back to Good Causes all over the country.
The Cuisle Cancer Support Centre was founded in 2004 and provides vital services to cancer patients and their families. Such services consist include counselling at community level, manual lymph drainage and a wide range of holistic services such as Reflexology, Reiki, Aromatherapy Massage, Craniosacral Therapy and Acupuncture. CCS will be in the Health & Wellbeing category in the finals.
Abbeyleix Bog Project is a voluntary and community-led, multi-stakeholder conservation project involving a natural heritage area of 200 hectares. The site consists of various habitats: raised bog, degraded raised bog, mineral fen, wet woodlands, mixed woodlands, and orchid-rich grassland. This project will contest the Heritage category in the Good Causes Awards.
Laois Sports Partnership promotes, support and facilitate participation in sport and physical activity for all in Laois. Using National Lottery Good Causes funding they created and the True Transformation project for men which was specifically designed to counteract the negative effects of ageing, obesity and physical inactivity on the physical and metabolic health of men over 40 years of age.
This was achieved through specific health education workshops, meals plans and physical activity sessions. Laois Sports Partnership will contest the Sport category in this weekend’s awards.
The awards have six categories: Sport, Health & Wellbeing, Heritage, Arts & Culture, Community and Youth.
A seventh category, Irish Language, will have a special award to be announced on the night at the Awards final, in recognition of outstanding work done in the promotion of the Irish Language.
Each national category winner will receive €10,000 while the overall Good Cause of the Year will get an additional €25,000 on top of this.
The winners will be announced at a Gala Awards event in the Clayton Burlington Hotel in Dublin on Saturday November 2.
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