IS IT A BIRD, IS IT A PLANE? NO. IT’S MY TEACHER! - 30th April 2004

Three teachers from the North Kildare Educate Together School are taking extreme steps to raise money for their school next month – they’ll be stepping out of an aeroplane! The three, Tom Moriarty, Olive O’Reilly and Lisa McKeown, will be plummeting through the clouds at Edenderry on the 8th of May. They are taking part in a sponsored parachute jump and will be hoping to raise in excess of €10,000.

Last year NKETS moved from portacabins into a state of the art school building. However, the grant received annually from the Department of Education and Science doesn’t fully cover the day to day running costs of the school and NKETS relies heavily on contributions from the school community to pay the bills. In spite of this, the community has been rallying round to support the parachutists. Each jumper needs to raise €260 to cover the cost of the jump itself and this has generously been provided by three companies, CMC Garage, Maynooth, Colas Building Products and Lucan Lodge Nursing Home, each of whom has ties to the school.

The main bulk of the money, as always, will be supplied by the families and friends of the children in the school. They’ve been hugely supportive of many fundraising events in the past.
School Principal Rita Galvin has warned the trio not to break any limbs. “It’s impossible to get a trained substitute teacher these days”, she noted. But that, of course, is another story.

For further information Please contact:
Rita Galvin
North Kildare Educate Together N.S.
Clane Road, Ballymakealy
Celbridge, County Kildare
Telephone: 01 627 4388
Fax: 01 6274398
e-mail: nkets.ias@eircom.net