News & Events

Catherine Terry visits schools in Dublin and Cavan this week to talk about Jack & Jill Schools campaign to swap old mobile phones for interactive whiteboards for the classroom

- Over 780 schools nationwide have already registered

The Jack & Jill Foundation’s very own teacher turned campaigner, Ms Catherine Terry, is visiting schools in Dublin and Cavan this week to talk about Jack & Jill’s new school campaign to swap old mobile phones for interactive whiteboards for the classroom and to tell the story of Irish children’s charity Jack & Jill to students and teachers.  Catherine is taking a year out from teaching, having worked with Carrigaline GNS for the last 6 years, to work with Jack & Jill.

The Schools that Catherine will visit this week are:

DUBLIN

Monday 19th October
Holy Child BNS, Larkhill, Whitehall, Dublin 9
St. Columba’s N.S., Iona Road,Glasnevin, Dublin 9
Dominican College, 204 Griffith Avenue, Dublin 9

Tuesday 20th October
St. Francis of Assisi PS, Belmayne, Balgriffin,Dublin 13
St. Paul’s S.N.S., Ayrfield, Dublin 13
Scoil Bhride Grange Road, Donaghmede, Dublin 13
Pobalscoil Neasain, Baldoyle, Dublin 13
St Fintans N.S., Carrickbrack Road, Sutton, Dublin 13

Wednesday 21st October
St. Francis Xavier J.N.S., Roselawn Road, Castleknock, Dublin 15.
St. Brigid’s N.S., Beechpark Lawn, Castleknock, Dublin 15
Mulhuddart N.S., Powerstown Road, Tyrrelstown, Dublin 15
Blakestown C.S., Blanchardstown, Dublin 15

CAVAN

Thursday 22nd October
Tullyveela N.S.,Corlough, Belturbet P.O., Co. Cavan
St. Mary’s N.S., Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan
Kill N.S., Cootehill, Co. Cavan
Holy Family S.S., Cootehill,Co. Cavan

Friday  23rd October
St. Clare’s N.S., Ard Mhuire, Cavan Town, Co. Cavan
Cavan 1 N.S., Farnham St., Cavan
Saint Felim’s, Farnham Street,Cavan,Co.Cavan
Loreto College, Loreto College, Cavan, Co. Cavan

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Jack and Jill Presents ‘Doves and Stripes’ Rug to Noble Peace Prize Winner, President Barack Obama

The ‘Doves and Stripes’ rug which measures 9ft X 6ft and was handmade in Katmandu and designed by Luke Irwin who is Jonathan Irwin’s son and the brother of Jack Irwin – after whom the Jack & Jill Foundation was founded in 1997.
Jack and Jill presented this rug, via Minister Micheál Martin, to President Barack Obama on St. Patricks Day 2009, in the belief that he would change America’s attitude to world affairs. It is quite remarkable that what we felt, we saw, has been translated into the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Schools are asked to swap old mobile phones for interactive whiteboards

The Jack & Jill Foundation, through its partner Promethean, have launched a campaign where they are asking schools to swap 300 old mobile phones for a new interactive whiteboard and to raise much needed funds for home nursing care for sick children in the process.  The offer also includes installation and training for participating schools who can sign up by visiting our schools website. This recycling initiative will assist schools to earn green flag status, with obvious benefits to the environment by preventing the pollution caused by putting old phones into landfills.  It is estimated that there are over 10 million old phones in Irish households, just gathering dust and this is a very attractive deal for schools considering the high cost of whiteboards here.
For 300 old mobile phones participating schools can earn a 78 inch Promethean ActivBoard, complete with two ActivPens and the latest lesson development software, Activinspire, while 500 phones will earn the 78 inch whiteboard complete with a height-adjustable frame, super short-throw projector, speakers as well as the two ActivPens and the latest lesson development software, Activinspire.
According to Jonathan Irwin, CEO and Founder of the Jack & Jill Foundation, “This is a great deal for everyone and we’d like to put a new whiteboard into every classroom in Ireland while putting these old phones to good use, with 250 mobiles buying home nursing care for Jack & Jill children for one month.  There’s no limit to the number of schools who can participate and there’s no time frame on this campaign and we’re hoping that lots of schools will sign up by September.  We wanted to launch the campaign before the school holidays so that the children can get collecting over the summer.”

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Cash in your gold stash with Goldrush.ie

Jack & Jill Patron Eddie Hobbs, with former Miss World Rosanna Davison at the launch of Goldrush.ie a new Irish website that pays cash to people who want to sell unwanted gold jewellery.  Even after the 21.5% donation to Jack & Jill, the price paid for the gold is very good - so people using Goldrush.ie score on the double as they can cash in their stash of gold at a good price and help Jack & Jill families in their community at the same time.  (Old style scales borrowed from John Brereton and jewellery belongs to Morgan Pierce, thank you).

After logging in, the first step is to enter the weight and type of gold and the website gives examples and simple instructions to follow.  An estimated price is quoted on the spot which is net of the donation to Jack & Jill and, if interested, the user requests a recycling pack which is posted out.  The user posts the gold to Goldrush (through registered post) who then get a master jeweller to do a formal valuation.  Users then receive a cheque in the post or their jewellery back.

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Jack and Jill Up the Hill Fun Run

The 2009 Jack and Jill Up the Hill  run took place in Kenmare on Saturday April 18th 2009 at 3pm.

There was a huge turnout from all competitors walking and running, young and old. To all of you who supported the event and equally to all of the huge number of volunteers and other contributors we would like to extend a large “thank you”.

The run which has now become an annual event, is a 10-kilometre charity run or walk in the surroundings of Kenmare town.

The date for the 2010 run has been set as the 24th April 2010. We will be posting more details on our website as they become available.

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Our website guru Mark Swaine is a Godsend, as he can translate all this social media, techno, mumbo jumbo into easy, digestible sentences.  Indeed, our modest little website has come on in leaps and bounds, and things just make more sense at the touch of a button, and Mark has guided us through this whole process and turned some of our office staff like Deirdre into budding cyber fundraisers.

Himself and Catherine Terry our school teacher turned fundraiser score A+ for our new website for schools which we have recently launched.

The main selling point is that schools can swap 300 old phones for a new interactive whiteboard; so no wonder over 797 schools have registered already particularly in the Dublin, Kildare and Cork counties.

Thanks Mark for all your hard work.

For more information on Mark’s work logon on to the Squire website

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Giddy Studios captures Handprints on Pottery

Giddy studios, a very special pottery painting studio captured Jack and Jill’s little ones handprints and footprints on pottery at family day. Our thanks to Helena from Giddy Studios who kindly doanted a mug to each family on Family day. Visit www.giddystudios.com to find out more about why a trip to giddy is good for you:)

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Update from Munster meeting -  Rochestown Park Hotel, Douglas, Cork on Tuesday 30^th June

We had a reasonable turnout of 16 people for our first Munster meeting for families & friends of Jack & Jill on Tuesday 30^th June, the objective of which was to share our national 2009 plan for Jack & Jill and to ask the people on the ground how best to localise it and make it work.  We’d like to say a big thank you to those who turned up and this update summarises what was discussed that night, so that others can tune in and stay connected too.

The new deal for schools whereby they can swap 300 old mobile phones (in any condition) for a new Promethean interactive whiteboard for the classroom was discussed and explored.  (See www.phonesforboards.com for more details.)  All agreed that the best way to promote this deal was to talk about it at the school gates and to approach schools in the local area and ask them if and when they were registering for the new campaign.  It’s easy and it really makes financial sense for schools and if we get enough schools interested we could raise a huge chunk of our budget through this.

We reminded people that mobile phones continue to be the biggest source of income for Jack & Jill with 250 phones buying home nursing care for a sick child for one month.  We are a charity that can demonstrate why charity begins at home and we have a county by county breakdown of the number of families we support and the annual and monthly care bill – which we always push through media interviews.  We are hoping that what we’re calling our “Jack & Jill County Champion Programme” will evolve whereby companies in every county in Ireland will step up to support the Jack & Jill families in their community and absorb the home nursing care bill for 6 to 12 months at a time.  Any family members who work in companies with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes should let them know about the county by county breakdown from Jack & Jill and get in touch with the office.  One or two attendees from the meeting are interested in finding out more about the Champion Programme and we’ll keep you informed about progress.

Goldrush.ie the new fundraising initiative which encourages people to cash in their stash of gold and help Jack & Jill in the process was also discussed.  The great selling point about this is that Jack & Jill’s Goldrush.ie offers a really good price for unwanted gold and a donation of 21.5% is built into the price.  People are encouraged to check out the rate by logging into www.goldrush.ie We’ve already had a very good response to the initial photocall whereby we painted our patron Eddie Hobbs gold (thank you Eddie) to launch Goldrush.ie and people are already in contact and asking for the special Goldrush bags.  We’ve had good success with our publicity programme around Goldrush and the advertising campaign has also commenced.

One of the main ideas to come out of the meeting was the suggestion that Jack & Jill should keep families and friends connected through a simple newsletter to be produced on a quarterly basis.  This is a great way of explaining new fundraising initiatives but also to share the experiences of families up and down the country and to really promote that sense of one big family and beating the isolation factor.  Our first newsletter will be out in September 2009.

Approaching the medical community, which includes consultants, nurses and social workers, and ensuring that they know about Jack & Jill and the services we provide was presented as a real challenge for 2009.  There are mixed messages out there about Jack & Jill with some consultants promoting the Foundation proactively and positively and others just mentioning it as almost an afterthought, if at all.  We need to develop a way of influencing this key medical target group as they are the people who introduce Jack & Jill to our families.  Publicity in Irish Medical Times is one route and identifying key speaking opportunities for Jonathan Irwin to reach this community is another.

Some of our parents are happy to help with the schools programme and to make presentations about Jack & Jill and our mobile phone fundraising campaign in their local schools.  We are assembling a list of interested parents for this exercise and we will have a training session with this group to ensure they have the right material and are confident about talking to the schools in due course.  Anybody interested should contact the office and put their name down.

Helping families out with local publicity is something we do from the office and we have developed a PR template to help people organising events to make the most of free local publicity for the event and to build Jack & Jill’s reputation.  Check lists, goodie bags etc are something we will be developing over the coming weeks and months.  In the meantime, anyone who needs help with their publicity drive should contact the office and we will put you in touch with Carmel Doyle who is our public relations officer.

At Jack & Jill it is the families who can best tell the story of what we do and how that impacts positively on their lives.  Therefore over the coming months we are looking for more families to be used as reference points for the local media and this is something we do through the liaison nurses.  We are also conducting a research project with Trinity College that will help us to make the economic argument for Jack & Jill by producing the success story behind the organisation in the shape of hard facts and figures, that show how we save the tax payer money.

On a practical note, we recognise that regional meetings should be held on a county by county basis, rather than a whole province, as Cork was simply too far to travel for many families in Munster who we know would like to attend a closer meeting.  This is something we have taken on board for the next meeting.

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Download Cut backs in Special Needs Classes PDf >>

Parents, Your Comments Please.

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Brí CD

On April 4th 2008, Síofra Teape died suddenly from a rare disease called Reyes Disease.She was a talented bright and happy little seven year old who lived life to the full and the whole community in Letterkenny was stunned by the tragedy. Brighdín Carr and the Blue Ribbon Youth arts group where Síofra was a diligent member were united in their grief and felt that they had to do something, anything, to help Síofra’s friends and family begin to cope with her loss, and indeed their own loss. Brigidín was then asked to sing at the funeral of another child, one year old Orla, Sinead Trearty’s daughter. In Sinead’s grief Brigidín introduced Sinead to Siofra’s mother Marie and together they planned a special tribute to all their children in Siofra’s name.The CD Brí was born.  The CD has 4 songs
1. Éist
2. Sometimes
3. Starmaker
4. Hope you dance

All proceeds from the sale of the CD go to Jack and Jill.

The CD can be purchased from the Jack and Jill Office for €7

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