Volunteers brush aside vandals’ damage to make Finglas school shine

YOUNGSTERS eagerly came back to their north Dublin school yesterday - weeks ahead of its reopening - to witness an amazing scene.

The 70 three to seven-year-olds broke their holidays to watch their school in Finglas West get a €30,000 facelift.

Located in a disadvantaged area, St Brigid’s had borne the scars of being the frequent target of vandals.

With 300 children on the rolls, the 22-teacher school struggled against the odds.

Paintbrush in hand, managing director Matt Rossmeissl, led 80 volunteers from Microsoft’s European operations centre in Sandyford in the clean-up operation.

School principal Carmel Lillis was absolutely delighted with the transformation.

“It’s more than I could have hoped for,” she said.

During their afternoon’s endeavours to put the gloss back into Finglas, the volunteers repainted one entire wing of the school as well as the gym.

“Microsoft has a tradition of volunteering to help community-based projects. When the situation at St Brigid’s came to our attention we decided to dedicate our day out this year to helping at the school,” said Matt.

Ms Lillis said she contacted Volunteering Ireland, looking for help to fix the school, and it put out her request on the web.

“I wrote saying my dream would be that the children, parents and staff could come back to school in September to a freshly painted school,” she said.

“In a sense that would symbolise ... our commitment to give the children the very best we can.”