You buy, We give.
We at Applegreen have created our very own ‘Applegreen Charitable Fund’. This fund has been active since 1st December 2009. Every time you make an in store purchase 1 cent of the purchase total will be donated to our charitable fund, there is no need to request the donation to be added to the receipt, it will be done automatically, with no additional cost to you. The money raised since the fund's inception in 2009 has been donated to GOAL and The LauraLynn House, both registered Irish charities. In 2012, the fund will be split between our two new charity partners, The Jack & Jill Foundation and Console.
The Applegreen Charitable Fund allows all our customers to support these two worthwhile organizations without any action or request other than to buy a product in an Applegreen shop. There is no need to request the donation to be added to the receipt, it will be done automatically. Now that’s better.
Jack & Jill Children's Foundation
So to say that being named Applegreen's charity partner for 2012 means a lot to us, is a big understatement. It's huge. It is a lifeline in the form of a revenue stream and a presence in every Applegreen store around the country. It means working with Applegreen staff to make the most of this opportunity locally and nationally by making Applegreen stores collection points for our recycling of mobile phones and crutches and turning these unwanted items into cash for home nursing care. It means meeting and greeting the local community in the Applegreen space and making the most of this opportunity for everyone involved.
The money raised will fund two of our 11 liaison nurses nationwide, who manage an army of 1,000 nurses and carers across the country. The campaign will reinforce our recycling drive for 2012 and give us an important link into the local community through our Applegreen network.
Jonathan Irwin
CEO
About the project
There is a Jack & Jill family in every community in Ireland. These are ordinary people who have the extraordinary challenge of caring for their sick child at home — a child suffering from developmental delay through brain damage — a child who may take seizures, be peg fed, oxygen dependent and in need of constant monitoring; a child who may never go to school, play football or drive a car. But underneath all this disability, this precious child feels hunger and pain and just wants to be held and loved and kept warm and cosy at home, where they belong. I know this through personal experience with my son Jack Irwin who was born on 29th February 1996 and for whom there were no services outside the hospital. Regardless of the best advice, we took him home and cobbled together a roster of care with the help of family and friends and two local nurses which became the blueprint for the Jack & Jill Children's Foundation. Jack Irwin passed away at home on 13th December 1997 and his legacy lives on through the 1,500 children we have supported since then.
Home nursing care makes sense on so many levels. Families refer to it as "the gift of time" — time to do the normal things like sleeping, shopping or taking the other kids for a drive, with the peace of mind that their fragile baby is being well cared for. The sick child does better, as do the parents and siblings. Our model of care is nine times less expensive than hospital care, but we get only 19% of our required €2.7 million annual budget from the State, a figure that is likely to decrease in 2012.
Console
Providing support and services to individuals, families and children who have been affected by the terrible tragedy of suicide, or to those who are at risk themselves, is very challenging work. We at Console are reminded daily of the value and importance of such life-saving services and are dedicated to preventing such tragic losses and reducing the high numbers of deaths by suicide in Ireland.
We are delighted to have been chosen by Applegreen as beneficiaries of their Charity Fund in 2012. Given 2012 is Console's 10th year in existence, such vital support from Applegreen, the staff and the customers, will make a huge difference to all those vulnerable people who come to us for help and support.
Paul Kelly
Founder and CEO of Console
About the project
Console is an Irish charity, founded in 2002, which provides a comprehensive range of services, supports and resources in the fields of suicide prevention and bereavement. A freephone helpline operates 24 hours every day where callers can gain instant access to a counsellor or therapist, trained specifically to provide support and counselling in the aftermath of a suicide and indeed to those in immediate crisis. Console operates counselling centres in Dublin, Kildare, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Wexford and Athlone, where bereaved individuals, families or children can avail of free counselling from professional teams of therapists. The Centres also provide support groups and educational and community outreach services in their locality.
Support from Applegreen and its customers during 2012 will allow Console to continue and further develop our suicide prevention services nationally and in many different ways. At present, the therapeutic services are delivered by telephone, or face-to-face in our Counselling Centres. During 2012, Console intends to provide related services utilising new online mediums and strategies. The provision of online counselling (through chat, messaging, email and webcam) will be an important development for Console and will help us reach so many more people who are in distress. Importantly, such mediums will also appeal to a younger demographic and facilitate a connection to those who live remotely or in isolated locations. Furthermore, in 2012 Console in collaboration with the National Digital Research Centre, hopes to design and provide a new and exciting online therapeutic programme and platform for clients who are at risk of suicide.
Conservative statistics show that over 500 people die by suicide every year in Ireland, with every death impacting on so many more. Console is committed to reducing these high numbers and we always ensure our front-line services are free and as accessible as possible; with kind support from Applegreen in 2012 the development of a range of online supports will undoubtedly assist us in this goal.
Learn more about Console's services
Console provides a National Freephone Helpline, 7 Days a Week, 24 Hours a Day. The Helpline is operated by our team of counsellors nationally and aims to provide support, advice and referral services to anyone bereaved by suicide.
National Freephone Helpline: 1800 201 890
How it works
For every in-store transaction in an Applegreen shop in Ireland, the Company donates 1 cent to our Applegreen Charitable Fund. This was set up in December 2009 to raise much needed funds for Irish Registered Charities. Our chosen charities for 2010 and 2011 were GOAL and The LauraLynn House, in association with the Children's Sunshine Home.
You can keep track of money raised on this website as this will be visible on the tracker shown on both this and the home page.
Charitable funds raised will be given to the chosen charities via a cheque every 3 months. Please watch this web page for updates on money given and updates on how the charities spend the money donated from the Fund.
The funds raised will be taken directly from in store till transaction numbers. The fund will be monitored internally continuously and audited independently once a year by the accountancy firm Phelan Prescott.