Passion for Fashion putting the best frock forward

Gort Cancer Support is hosting Passion for Fashion this Friday, which promises to showcase the best of local business as well as raise funds to facilitate the work of the organisation.

 

The Gort Cancer Support committee has a simple message for the people of the area, “Come out and support the town, and come out and support the centre”.

According to Carmel Kerins, PRO for Gort Cancer Support, “This event at the Lady Gregory will showcase the range of gifts, accessories, and beauty items available locally.

“Our fashion show will include Pat Smyth’s Menswear and Ladieswear, Treasures and Styleman with fabulous local models of all ages. We feel this is an opportunity to promote local business and our charity.”
Indeed one of the big attractions on the night will be the selection of models that have volunteered to take to the catwalk for the worthy charity.

“The models are all quite well-known local people. We have some very well-known local people including some of the recent All Ireland club championship winning St Thomas’s team, our own Gort hurlers and some well known ladies from the area. Everyone is taking this as a bit of fun and not taking themselves too seriously. We even have the local parish priest, Fr Tommy on board to model,” Carmel said.

Every year Gort Cancer Support holds a fundraiser to sustain the day-to-day running of the centre.

“We just started organising this a few weeks ago, the fundraising committee said ‘you know, we haven’t had a fashion event in a while so why not try it’. Since then the support we have received from the shops has been marvellous.

“They are delighted to help and they have put such a lot of time into this, into trying to facilitate the models and into trying to help. The Lady Gregory has been brilliant too,” she stated.

The services offered by Gort Cancer Support are varied. “We are in a very lucky position to have been given a donation to buy a premises last year. It is open to the public three days a week for a drop-in centre. We have a lovely modern building in Gort and we have lots of services with the main one being driving people to their treatment appointments. The driving service is particularly popular at the moment. It means that volunteer drivers bring people from the area to their treatment in Galway, they wait for them and then take them home again. We have a fantastic selection of volunteers here, a lot of them are perhaps people who have retired early and have a spare day in the month or whatever.

“We also run a coffee morning one day a month to encourage people to come in and see the centre. We have a butterfly group which is made up of people who have had cancer and they meet up for a chat and it would be a sort of support group really.

“We have complementary therapist who comes into the centre and gives massages and reflexology and all that type of thing to patients and their carers.

“The money we raise from this event will go towards the upkeep of the premises and utility bills and the day-to-day running of the centre and our services. We pay the therapist to come in and we have administration costs and general bills but the drivers and the committee are all volunteers,” Carmel explained.

So far feedback for the event has been very positive, according to organisers.

“The businesses here, the same as everywhere else, are under a lot of pressure at the moment so we decided that we would showcase what was available in local businesses here in the town as well as trying to raise money for us. Hopefully this will raises a bit of interest around the town because we are very lucky in that we still have quite a large number of shops around the town. Aside from the fashion show itself, we also have stalls from local businesses showcasing handbags, jewellery, beauty products, gifts, interior accessories, complementary therapies, hair car and anything really.

“We are asking people to come along, enjoy a complementary glass of bubbly, see what the town has to offer, mix with people, and raise a bit of money for a very good cause at the same time. We hope to have music too so hopefully people will come out and mix and enjoy themselves,” Carmel concluded.

Tickets are available from Bank of Ireland, Gort, Coole Design, Quinn’s Pharmacy, Treasures and at the door on the night. Passion for Fashion takes place in The Lady Gregory Hotel this Friday at 8pm.