Father and son plan Kilimanjaro trek for charity
Frank Quill, who is in his 50s, and his son Eoin, 17, are in training to scale the 19,300ft-high Mount Kilimanjaro on June 28.
Frank, who has climbed many mountains in the past — Kilimanjaro, Mont Blanc in France and the Andes — said the pair who live in Bantry want to raise as much money as they can for Cancer Connect which was set up in Apr 2011.
Eoin also shares a love of hill walking and started at an early age on the mountains of West Cork. “He climbed Carrauntoohill for the first time when he was 12,” Frank said.
“Last year he was the youngest person ever to complete mountain skills courses one and two in Capponolea, Co Kerry,” his father added.
They will leave for Africa as soon as Eoin has finished his Leaving Certificate exams.
Frank said the pair had decided to raise funds for Cancer Connect because it had done such fantastic work for cancer sufferers in the region.
“As this is a local service provided by volunteers to take patients for cancer treatment [chemotherapy and radiotherapy] to hospital, we greatly admire them because they do this selflessly and rely solely on charitable donations,” Frank said.
All of the money that the father and son raise from their sponsored climb will go directly to the charity.
Bridget O’Brien, Cancer Connect spokeswoman, said the organisation started transferring patients to and from CUH in Apr 2011 along the N71 corridor as far west as Mizen Head.
“We recently got a second eight-seater people carrier which we are running to the hospital from Castletownbere to Bantry and into Dunmanway,” she said.
Ms O’Brien said to date the charity had taken more than 160 cancer patients to CUH.
She said that while the organisation had a number of volunteer drivers on the N71 route, it could do with more in the Bantry area.
* Donations to Cancer Connect can be made via the TSB branch in Skibbereen — sort code 990717, account number 018913905.
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