Charity event this Saturday to honour dying teen's wish to give toys to sick kids
A mega charity event to honour a teenage girl's dying wish to provide toys to sick children for Christmas takes places this Saturday in Navan.
16-year-old Sarah Robinson's last wish was to buy toys for Little Blue Heroes, a voluntary led organisation that supports families of children with serious illnesses.
The initiative helped the youngster from Wexford who sadly passed away in 2018 and her family through her battle with Childhood Cancer.
The event will see Little Blue Heroes volunteers rock up to Smyths in Navan where there will be a trolly dash for €20,000 worth of toys for sick children. They will be followed by a convey of 30 supercars provided by Bumblebee 1000.
The inspiration for Little Blue Heroes came from the work Navan Garda Alan Keane and his colleagues carried out with charities around the country.
Alan and his wife Annmarie's initiative together with their 250 strong volunteers has raised over €600,000 to families struggling financially. There are currently 560 families registered with the charity that has seen a 60 percent increase in requests for support in last 18 months.
As well as supporting families financially, Little Blue Heroes also makes children honorary members of An Garda Siochana giving them very important task to carry out as crime busting pillars of the community!
"My husband and I and some of his colleague in Harcourt Square Community Engagement Bureau started Little Blue Heroes eight years ago," said Annmarie.
"There were Gardai out on the beat coming across families who were financially stuck for money or the child needed some extra support and Alan and his colleagues were trying to do a whip around for them.
"Alan would get calls in about making children Gards for the day and things like that and his colleagues were doing a lot of work with other charities and we thought why don't we have our own."
"The name ‘Little Blue Heroes’ came about when we found that the vast amount of the children we support have a strong fascination with police uniform, equipment, vehicles, Garda units, etc. This has even led some of the children to make a wish to become an Honorary Garda and become part of the Garda family."
The organisation helps families through different avenues as Annmarie explains:
"Members of An Garda Siochana, social workers, clinical nurse specialists, second year nurses, Laura Lynn nurses, mams, dads,aunts and uncles and grandparents nominate a child to come in to us through our forums that we have.
"We have two aims, financial support for families. Having a child with a serious illness can be financially difficult because one parent has to give up work to care for them. We have given over €600,000 directly to families.
" We also have our Haven's for Heroes where we arrange short breaks for Little Blue Hero families who would not normally get a chance to take a family holiday.
"When the application forms comes into us, we contact the local Gards who become their Garda buddies. They get their own bespoke uniform - we have the operational unit uniform, the shirt, the tie, the trousers and we have the detective unit which is a polo shirt and tracksuit bottoms. For vehicles we have Garda cars and bikes for those that use them and special wheelchair leg fleece covers for our wheelchair users.It's important for to be inclusive."
Annmarie says Little Blue Heroes could not operate without their volunteers and fundraisers.
"We are supported by the Garda Commissioner and An Garda Siochana.
"We are blown away at how the Gards and the local communities, have embraced what we wanted Little Blue Heroes to be. They have really wrapped their arms around Little Blue Heroes and really looked after our families and our honorary Gards.
"Most of our money comes from amazing people jumping out of planes, walking until their feet bleed, coffee mornings, they are our bread and butter events, without them we wouldn't be able to function."
Keep an eye on Meath Chronicle social media where we will have more from the event on Saturday.