The St. Francis Abbey Brewery Carol singers did their bit this week for the Butts effort to redevelop their old parish hall as Kilkenny’s newest Neighbourhood Centre.

Workers and formers workers and spouses from the Brewery brought some Christmas cheer to the Town Hall on a bitterly cold Saturday in their effort to raise funds for the Fr. McGrath Centre and the new Neighbourhood Centre on the Butts Green.

Local people gave generously to street collectors and St. Francis Brewery did their bit by promising to double whatever was collected on the day to help with the effort to refurbish the hall.

Pat Neary, Chair of the Neighbourhood Centre steering committee, and retired employee of the Brewery himself, thanked his former workers and employer for their continuing generosity to the project.

He said: ‘ They are long and historic links between our parish hall and many of the brewery staff and we feel very encouraged by their efforts to support our plan to help save this building to serve future generations of Kilkenny families.

The money raised by the Brewery workers effort will be well used in the new year as the community group ramps up its plan to help save the only parish hall left in Kilkenny City and not lost to developers.

The committee will need to raise over €100,000 over the next three years if they are to succeed with their ambitious re -development plan for the old hall, formerly a national school from the end of the nineteenth and until the middle of the twentieth century.

Brewery employee and event organiser, Eamon Corcoran, thanked the volunteers who gave up their time on a bitterly cold afternoon to help the Fr. McGrath Centre and the Neighbourhood Centre project. He said: ‘

‘The voluntary workers committee behind much of the fundraising undertaken by the brewery over the last few years have always held the work of the Fr. McGrath Centre in very high regard, especially their work in supporting children in education.

Our workers have supported their team by organising fishing trips for children on their summer camps and sports and other fundraisers through the year to help support their programmes and anything we raised the Brewery doubled.’ He added.

THURSDSAY TEA DANCE:

The Tea Dance cancelled in the Neighbourhood Hall last Wednesday because of the snow storm is rescheduled for this Thursday afternoon and all are welcome. Music legends Pat and Sean Shortis promise to make it an enjoyable afternoon for all and to help dance away the cold weather blues.

The Tea Dance event is organised by Kilkenny Contact, a befriending service for older people or people living alone, and the Fr. McGrath Centre team.

Snookers, social games, table tennis, dance classes, karate lessons, morning drop in cafe and bingo evenings are now just some of the many activities running from the hall.

The drop in cafe operates every morning from 11.00 -1.00pm and visitors are always welcome.

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