Harvest Festival Aims to Build Community Spirit

Councillor Gerry O’Connor recently announced that this year, a Harvest Festival will be held to coincide with the Solheim Cup Golf Tournament to be held in Killeen Castle near Dunshaughlin in September, which is expected to attract over 100,000 visitors.

Councillor O’Connor said, “the coinciding planned Harvest Festival has been very successful in getting the whole town involved behind the initiative, and is bringing a great sense of community to Dunshaughlin.” Events like these are providing positive distractions from the ongoing recession which has affected communities throughout Ireland.

Dunshaughlin is a town typical of how individual communities around the country have been affected by the recession. “Unemployment has had a huge effect on this community. It is particularly noticeable in the town, there are more men bringing their kids to and from school. Cash flows are tight and there is little disposable income. Families who would be mainly middle class seem to be most affected, and there are quite a number of families struggling in negative equity/ and or struggling with mortgages. Each interest rate increase will further put pressure on these families, who are now just about keeping their heads above water financially,” said Councillor O’Connor.

In Dunshaughlin, a Money Advice and Budgeting (MAB) office was provided in the community centre, as well as a citizen’s advice service. The community centre has dropped its price for gym membership and fitness classes and also offers flexible memberships and payment options. It has also encouraged a barter system, whereby memberships can be exchanged for services such as carpentry, electrical work, etc. And Dunshaughlin has a good infrastructure of public amenities: there is a tone zone for the elderly, a recently launched heritage trail, a running track, tennis courts, a park and a library, all of which cost nothing to use.

There has not been a noticeable increase in anti-social behaviour because of the recession. The 14 to 16 year olds are, however, vulnerable to going down this route, as they are probably the section of society that have the least offered to them by the community. The community centre has set up the ‘Trust’ Youth room to cater for this age group, and in particular for those youths who would not go to traditional youth clubs/Foroige etc. It costs nothing to join (excepting 4 hours community work p.a.) and it’s unsupervised and run by its members.

A study published recently by the Institute for Public Health Ireland called ‘Facing the Challenge’ stated that the newly restructured local and community development programme has four goals: to increase access to formal and informal educational, recreational and cultural activities and resources; to increase peoples work readiness and employment prospects; to promote engagement with policy, practice and decision making processes on matters affecting local communities; and to promote the uptake of a wide range of voluntary and community services.

Since the recession started, increasing numbers of people are looking to get involved more in the community. Volunteering is on the increase, and this is a positive side of the downturn, as most of the social and recreational activities provided by the many clubs depend on volunteers. With more time on their hands, more people are coming forward, and these groups are benefiting.

Communications Officer for the Community Foundation for Ireland (CFI), Una O’Murchu, explained how the CFI was established to assist communities proposing worthwhile projects with grants.

“The CFI was established over ten years ago by business people who wanted to give back to their communities: it is a worldwide initiative and each country is supported by its own citizens, large and small amounts can be donated and are paid into an endowment policy and grants are paid out from the interest which we allocate in grants to qualifying communities that apply to the CFI. It is a non-profit organisation and nothing to do with government,” said Ms O’Murchu.

Initially, the Federation was assisted by the Irish Government, who was one of the donors who assisted the Federation with grants. In 2010, the CFI created 14 new funds, bringing their total number of funds to 50, and distributed 2.175 million euro in a number of grants. Their aim is to strengthen communities throughout Ireland by investing in people, ideas and activities. There are 1500 community foundations in 50 countries around the world, managing 40 billion in assets.