A charitable organization providing meals to “poorest children in the world” moved his group Armagh and Benburb to a place where inspiration for participation in the initiative first triggered.
The charity, Mary’s Meals provides a free meal at more than 2.4 million children each school day and for many of these children, is the main meal of the day.
Food helps them concentrate, which means they can learn and hope for a better future.
In recent years, awareness of the charity of children Mary has grown in Northern Ireland and now there are many Mary meal support groups in this country – one of the longest groups is the Armagh and Benburb group.
Launched by Pauline McCormick from Blackwatertown, this group has been active for ten years.
Until 2022, the emphasis was placed on sending backpacks filled to the children of Malawi and, in total, they sent around 30,000 filled back bags.
At the end of this project, they focused on fundraising and to date, they have collected around £ 425,000.
For nine of the ten years that this group has supported Mary’s meals, the former Dobbin St. Armagh clinic was their base. It was an ideal building for the filling of backpacks because it is so spacious with several separate rooms.
However, the group no longer needs large premises and when the offer of a room in Benburb Priory was made, they were delighted and accepted with gratitude.
It is interesting to note that the inspiration to start this work for Mary’s meals came from a group of mothers who prayed together in the priory of Benburb – and then the support group returns to the priory of service in Benburb.
Pauline, the group’s coordinator, is very excited by this new start: “We started in Benburb and now we return to Benburb.
“We have spent good years in Armagh and we had fantastic support, but we think that this decision will energize us to continue, to continue this vital work to alleviate the hunger of small children.”
The group has new fundraising initiatives to bring with them to Benburb. They have two gift cards available for purchase, one for £ 10 and one for £ 20.
Róisín McVeigh – who designed the cards – explains that gift cards can be given as gifts, like any gift card. She explains: “These gift cards make perfect gifts because most people like to know that their gift provides wild food to poor children somewhere in the world.”
The new Mary’s Meals Center in Benburb Priory will be open every Tuesday on Friday between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.
All donations will be welcome. The group has taken up a challenge to finance daily school meals for 5,000 children this year! The fundraising objective is £ 95,000, so each donation counts.
Each meal costs only 10p, so if you give 50p, it’s a meal for five children!
The group also has a fund collection account, so if people cannot go to Benburb, they can click here to make a donation.
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