The Barretstown Hospital Outreach Programme (HOP) brings the magic of Barretstown to the bedside! Specifically designed to run in hospitals HOP allows children who cannot travel to Barretstown to experience the benefits of the Barretstown programme. Trained volunteers, who have all worked at camp before, set up in the hospital and run activities for the … Continued
Lovely story from a volunteer at HOP in Liverpool last week. Read on… Billy, who was 6 took part in our Hospital Outreach Programme (HOP) in Liverpool last week. Billy saw our giant Jenga game set and straight away asked to play with it. As you can imagine I was under the impression we would … Continued
Do you work in a creche or are you studying Early Childhood Learning or know anyone who is??? We are looking for volunteers to work in our creche for our weekend family camps in the Autumn which start in September. You’ll have great fun, meet a great bunch of people and be helping children with … Continued
38 returning volunteers joined us last weekend for our second Spring camp and 10 of them celebrated their 5th anniversary as Barretstown volunteers and were awarded with special T shirts. All our campers had a ball last weekend and a lot of it is down to this team working so hard to make sure … Continued
Spring camps are only round the corner now. The snowdrops are out, the crocuses are peaking through, camp staff are recruited and we have been hard at work upgrading existing cottages and building new ones to get ready for campers arriving. All our cottages are getting brand new bathrooms and we have 2 new cottages … Continued
Big thank you to the dilligent and very proactive Young Adults Forum who gave our costume room at Barretstown a good ol fashioned make over! And just look what they achieved…Just in time for our Spring families to wreak havoc! [nggallery id=19]
It’s a new year – Why not make 2013 the year that you take on a challenge which will help you get fit and help children with serious illness change their lives. Join Team Barretstown in 2013 and take part in one of many sporting events happening across the country. The feeling when you cross … Continued
Oliver, who volunteered at a family camp in October has written a brilliant account of what happens at camp. He explains just how the magic of Barretstown comes to life and changes lives. Click here for Oliver’s blog.
17 years ago when was 13 I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, 13 years ago the Malcolm Sargent Trust (now Clic Sargent) sent me on a trip to Co Kildare that has stuck with me ever since! This morning I was telling my little brother who is 12 about what happened to me and explained the … Continued
It was my favorite moment of my month long travels around Europe. Yes….after visiting some of the best cities in the world, the most popular monuments, the most famous beaches – my favorite moment took place in the Dublin Airport – go figure! I had said goodbye to Barretstown camp an hour earlier. The campers … Continued
I’m Celia Rocamora, one of the volunteers in session 5. I know I’ve already told you how grateful I am for this opportunity and how it’s been a life changing experience. I had heard many people say Barretstown changes your life but until I experienced it I couldn’t realise how true this is. Barretsown makes … Continued
A lovely story from Lisa Doyle Kinsella, one of our first campers at Barretstown. Myself and my best friend Laura Murphy met in St. John’s Ward in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin and were one of the first campers to go to Barretstown Camp in 1994! Our bond is so strong that recently … Continued
As we waved goodbye to the last of our 707 campers last week we reflected on what was a ‘seriously fun’ few months. Lots of laughter, smiles, courage and bravery from all our campers made it a summer to remember for staff and volunteers, parents, grandparents and everyone who is touched by a serious illness in … Continued
I have an almighty thank you to send to you so be prepared; this is a big one! Barretstown is my favourite place in the world. There is no other way to describe it. It has changed my life, and I really mean that. I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2005 when I … Continued
Rob Pleticha, whose day job is Online Communities Manager for RareConnect at EURORDIS, the European rare diseases organisation, volunteers every year to help children who are living with illness or rare diseases. A short time ago, he spent a week at Barretstown and he’s been kind enough to write for Special Needs Jungle about his … Continued
Trips to Barretstown went a long way to helping Orna Curley (8) overcome Leukaemia. Carmel (Orna’s mother) shares her story… Orna had been unwell for a few weeks during June 2009; feeling very tired, no appetite, feeling pain and finally bruising for no apparent reason. She had been to our GP a couple of times … Continued
How many times have you put money in a bucket, filled out a monthly direct debit form or played 18 holes of golf for a charity without really knowing who you might help, how you might help them and what it means to the person whose life you saved. When we think of saving lives … Continued
One of our campers, Elysha, very bravely went on TV 3’s Ireland AM show to talk about Barretstown. Alysha was joined by her Mum and our Clinical Nurse Manager Eimear Kinsella. You can see the interview by clicking on the link below. http://www.tv3.ie/videos.php?video=50540&locID=1.65.74&page=3
Read how your support helped one of our amazing campers from Co. Clare in this feature in the Irish Times – click here
As our beautiful journey is coming to an end, there so many things to remember and acknowledge. Days full of activities and challenges. We all climbed high up and cast to catch a fish. We cooked in silence and saved the Barretstown animals in a safari. We lead each other on a blind hike and … Continued