Students take plunge to hang out for charity
With their feet attached to a very large elastic band they cheerfully leap from one of the highest cranes in the country to raise funds for Temple Street Children’s Hospital.
Thousands of Dublin Institute of Technology students turned up for the DIT Carnival and ran amuck in the greenfield site of DIT’s Grangegorman Campus, located just beside St Brendan’s Hospital.
As well as bungie jumping, there were other zany events such as Gladiators, wellie throwing and human table football.
Other more established carnival-style fundraising events included wrestling competition, tug of war and ‘friendly’ football matches.
The students who took the plunge from the crane had to raise at least 100 but many managed to raise between €300 and €500 each.
Angie McNulty from Temple Street Children’s Hospital said all of the students who took part had raised well over €5,000, which was well beyond what the hospital had expected.
Ms McNulty, who is attached to the hospital’s Fundraising Office, said the money was badly needed to upgrade the kidney unit.
The total cost of the upgrade has been put at €590,000 so the unit can continue to develop new services of international standards for children of all ages and from all over the country.
The kidney unit’s haemodialysis facility, established in the unit three years ago, is the only one of its kind in the country and the number of children benefiting from it has increased dramatically in the last two years.
Ms McNulty said there was an urgent need to further develop the unit’s infrastructure.
