Holy Angels is funded by an annual service level agreement with the HSE but a certain amount of fundraising each year is required to meet costs that the HSE don't cover such as transport, specialised equipment, and extra activities such as our sessions with Music Generation.

COVID 19 has severely impacted any fundraising opportunities such as our annual Flag Day - street and church gate collection which we rely on each year.

TRANSPORT - Holy Angels currently has three vehicles on the road each day ( one for each pod/classroom) and our catchment area covers the whole of county Carlow and some areas of Laois and Kildare where our service would be much closer than a similar one in their own county. If we didn't provide transport some children would not be able to attend the centre at all.  The children all enjoy the bus trip to and from the centre and it helps promotes a little independence in the child and gives parents/guardians a longer break The HSE currently fund the wages for two drivers so the third driver, bus escorts, annual insurance and tax, diesel , service, and repairs are all additional costs that fundraising needs to cover.

EQUIPMENT- Depending on an individual child's needs sometimes specialised equipment e.g seating, buggy, assistive technology, is required at home and in the centre. These are often very bulky pieces of equipment that cannot be transported daily between home and school. Holy Angels occasionally must purchase such pieces if what we or the HSE has instore is not suitable. 

MUSIC GENERATION - This is our third year working with Music Generation Carlow. Each week we have sessions for each of our three classrooms on a Monday and Thursday with a musician from MG who works with the children and staff for the year.It has to be facilitated twice a week for all the children to have access to it as all are on part time placements, so we have different children on a Thursday than a Monday.Even though Music Generation itself is partly funded by the government and U2 there is still a fee to be paid for each school etc that they visit. The cost this school year for us is €2317 and this is another example of what fundraising covers as it wouldn't be included in the HSE funding.The programmes have been a huge success - kids love it and staff have learned so much from them also and use that throughout the week.