A Timahoe man and his girlfriend are raising funds for the Meningitis Research Foundation.
Micheál Conlan and Kirsha Rice – students at Maynooth University who work at An Post’s mail centre in Portlaoise to fund their studies – are planning to climb Kilimanjaro as part of a group of students from August 20-27.
“Kirsha’s mam’s friend’s baby was diagnosed with meningitis at just a few weeks old. Luckily the baby’s mam, Hazel, is a nurse so she knew the signs to look out for and it was caught early.
“The baby was in hospital for months and months with it. We have heard of so many cases of local people who had meningitis,” said Micheál (22).
When Kirsha, who is from Walsh Island, came across a post on Instagram about the Kilimanjaro fundraiser for the Meningitis Research Foundation, they were immediately interested in supporting such a good cause.
“We both enjoy walking and running and the outdoors. Kirsha grew up hiking every Sunday with her family in Glenbarrow. They still go hiking there and now I go along with them,” Micheál said.
“We both wanted to push ourselves, both mentally and physically, while trying to raise money along the way,” said Micheál, a past pupil of Heywood Community School.
“We both would love to eventually complete the seven summits, or at least as many as we can, as daunting as that sounds. So, this is a great opportunity to start early and complete our first one,” he said.
“The hardest part for us of the Kilimanjaro trip will be acclimatising to the altitude. Mentally, it will be a huge challenge, but we feel that we will be able for it.
“We will take on Carrauntoohil in March as a taster,” said Micheál. “We will have three mountaineers to guide us in Kilimanjaro. We will go through four different climates and every place we reach a new climate, we will camp there for the day.”
Micheál who is studying accounting and finance, and Kirsha who attended school in Killenard and Colaiste Iosagan, Portarlington, and is studying biomedical and pharmaceutical chemistry, are appealing for support.
“We are fully funding our own trips and we also have targets to meet for the charity.
“We are both paying €2,000 for the trip and we have to raise €5,500 each for the charity. We would really welcome any donation, big or small.
“Some fundraisers are being organised through work. We are also asking businesses to sponsor us, and they will get their names printed on the t-shirts that we will wear on the trip,” Micheál said.
“We plan on videoing and capturing our journey every step of the way to encourage other people to do it, and to get people interested in hiking and trekking.
“Our aim is to provide stripped back information we encounter along the way, from training to actually reaching the summit.”
Anyone who would like to donate can do so by clicking here.
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