Breege Lynn's Story – Volunteer 2010

The answer was as expected, the joy that comes from giving.

Breege Lynn lives in West Dublin. She's on her fourth blitz, she celebrated 3 birthdays here and she's lost count of the amount of houses she's painted.

With everything going on back home, the gloom and doom of the recession, the bad politics, the desperate banks and the dreaded budget I wondered what enticed a woman like Breege to spend her holiday working till her fingers blistered and her body ached. The answer was as expected, the joy that comes from giving.  Of course the craic is 90 and the sense of achievement immense. It gets harder to get the €5,000.00 in donations needed to travel each year but  Breege took on board some of the township ingenuity that sees a battered old suitcase used as a baby's cot one day and a coffee table the next. For the past three years she's asked her friends and family to part with their unwanted gifts she then raffles them off during coffee mornings in her workplace and local golf club. Her colleagues and friends are asked to buy a ticket for the princely sum of €2.00 and for that they are entered into a raffle and are treated to free sandwiches and cakes all of which have been donated by her local Superquin. Breege can fill three cars with bread and cakes at close of business on any given day. The food would otherwise be binned, the unwanted presents left to gather dust but instead Breege's two raffles bring in the guts of €3,500.00.

By Anna McPartlin