This article is from page 4 of the 2012-01-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
THE number clothes being dropped to the Enable Ireland shop in Ennis dropped by 50 per cent – the largest drop recorded at any Enable Ireland outlet in the country. The charity, which works with people with physical disabilities, blamed the recession for the drop in donations but could not explain why donations were so much lower in Clare than in the rest of the country.
Clare spokesperson for Enable Ireland Ann Kelly said that there was no danger that the Enable Ireland shop in Ennis would be closed and confirmed that the shop came in just marginally below its budgeted amount of profit for 2011. Any drop in profit for the organisation is likely to hit local services however, as all money raised by the organisation in Clare, remains in Clare.
“The donations that were dropped into the shop in Ennis were reduced dramatically last year. I don’t think that the people of Clare are in any way less generous than they were in 2010 but I think the recession is hitting people hard and people are holding on to clothes for longer than the would in the past,” she said.
“At the moment there really is an urgent appeal for anyone who can donate clothing. There has been a reduction everywhere but for some reason last year the donations to the show in Ennis were drastically reduced. The shop overall was not that much below the targets that were set out for the year. We did the best we could with what we had but the more donations that we get the more we can make for the charity.
“It all goes locally. Everything that is raised in Clare gets spent locally helping people in the county. So by not having as many donations it is impacting on the local people in the county.”
While the organisation recorded a reduction in the amount of donations in every shop, the most drastic drop was recorded in Ennis. The percentage reduction was just 16 per cent in both Louth and Westmeath.
The organisation is also to examine the possibility of getting their drivers to go door to door to collect donations instead of leaving them outside to avoid bags being collected by bogus collectors.
Enable Ireland to enable people with physical disabilities to achieve maximum independence, choice and inclusion in their communities.