Updated 12.51, 23 December 2014
A GENEROUS GESTURE from Irish woman Aisling Walsh has seen a homeless charity rake in €4,000 in donations.
Aisling, from Carrigaline, Co Cork, decided to buy up half a dozen highly-coveted Snow Glow Elsa dolls from the movie Frozen merchandise and bring them home for Christmas from Australia. With the help of Cork’s 96FM’s Opinion Line, she ran an auction for five of them with all proceeds going to the Cork Simon community.
“Before I came home, I saw on Facebook that people were asking if anyone had them – I went to a shop in Australia and there they were – I rang another shop and managed to get another few,” Aisling told TheJournal.ie this lunchtime.
I saw an appeal on Facebook for a sick girl with leukaemia who really wanted one so I brought one back for her. I rang my mum from Australia and she suggested that 96FM might hop on board to help me auction the other ones for charity so I packed them up.
As well as buying the dolls out of her own pocket, she also paid excess luggage charges to get them from Australia to Cork. There was a slight hitch when Aisling arrived back in Ireland last Friday – her bags didn’t arrive back with her.
I wasn’t even worried about my clothes – sure, it was all shorts and t-shirts. It was the dolls I was panicking over!
Thankfully, she was reunited with her precious cargo on Saturday and the auction went live for Simon’s website here.
By close of bidding yesterday, the five dolls had raised a total of bids of €4,000 – one €1,000 bid by Geraldine O’Neill of Fitzpatrick’s Shop in Glounthane, one €1,000 bid by Pat Phelan of Trustev, and the other three next highest bids were €700, €650 and €650 from Dan Kiely of Voxpro.
Pat and Dan have had Santa’s help to identify four very deserving young girls in Cork’s homeless services who will receive their Elsa dolls on Christmas morning.
In a nice coincidence, Pat was actually sitting beside Aisling on the final leg of her trip home – the Manchester to Cork flight on Friday!
It’s not Aisling’s only kind Christmas gesture either. She’s one of the hardy souls who will be going for a chilly swim on Christmas Morning at Robert’s Cove, Co Cork, in aid of the Marymount Hospice.
What a gal.
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