Vicar St Comedy Gala for Poppys Wheels

Vicar St Comedy Gala for Poppys Wheels
FUNDRAISER
Vicar St
16th September 2016
This September join us for the Vicar St Comedy Gala for Poppy’s Wheels featuring Pj Gallagher, Neil Delamere , David O’Doherty, Eleanor Tiernan, Gearoid Farrelly, Joanne McNally, Dermot Whelan, MC Karl Spain and many more.
This September 16th Vicar Street will host a comedy gala starring some of the very best known names in Irish stand up all volunteering their talent for a great cause! This huge Friday night show will be headlined by PJ Gallagher, Neil Delamere and David O’Doherty and they’ll be joined by a host of Irish stand up stars on the night like Eleanor Tiernan, Gearoid Farrelly, Joanne McNally, all MC’ed by the inimitable Karl Spain with appearances from Today FM’s Dermot Whelan and special surprise star guests on the night! It’s a guaranteed hilarious Friday night out with the cream of Irish comedians at Vicar Street and all for a great cause!
Poppy’s Wheels is a volunteer run benefit fund originally established in 2014 to help pay for the transport and equipment needs of Poppy Shankey, a 9 year old girl from Walkinstown with cerebral palsy and complex care needs. In 2015 the fund succeeded in raising money for an all-terrain wheelchair (called a ‘Hippocamp’ , the French for Seahorse) for Poppy, which was specially imported from France and allows her to go the beach and the forest with her whole family - something that was never possible with her everyday wheelchair. We want to expand the fund to help other families of disabled children to experience days out to the beach and the great outdoors together – simple pleasures enjoyed by so many families but that are not possible for most with a wheelchair using child. We will use the funds raised at the Comedy Gala to bring several of these wheelchairs into Ireland and pilot a scheme making them available to Irish families for short periods (eg for a weekend) which we will administer on a not-for-profit basis through our friends at the special needs shop and suppliers Adam and Friends (http://www.adamandfriends.ie) - who are the suppliers of the Hippocamps here in Dublin.
The Poppys Wheels gala will also raise funds for the summer camps at Poppy’s special needs school in Clondalkin (Scoil Mocua) and for it’s sister school in Clontarf, both of which are part-funded by the Parents Association of each school. Summer camps for kids like Poppy involve wheelchair adapted buses, Special Needs Assistants and Nursing Staff – and all that’s before they’ve headed out on any activities – so they are unusually expensive to organize! Half of the funds raised by the comedy gala will go towards these summer camps, the other half will be split between the purchase of Hippocamps and Poppy’s own ongoing equipment needs. 100% of the funds raised on the night will go to these causes and all of the comedians have all given their time and talent for free for this great night! .