Young sisters donate hundreds of Easter eggs to children's hospital

The family collected close to 1,000 eggs last year. File picture

Two young sisters have helped to bring their community together through their idea to collect and distribute Easter eggs to children in hospital.

Lauren Metcalfe, 16, and her younger sister Ellamay, 7, have given about 820 Easter eggs to the Children's Health Foundation at Temple Street, Dublin, which will distribute them to patients across its hospital wards.

People have either donated eggs to the youngsters from Ballymun through Revolut or dropped them off at Nan's Centra & Off Licence, the shop where their father Thomas Metcalfe works as a delivery driver.

Mr Metcalfe, 36, said the initiative, which was started by Lauren following an injury a decade ago, has helped to bring the community together.

"Ten years ago, Lauren broke her leg just before Easter and she had loads of Easter eggs [but] she wasn't a big chocolate person," Mr Metcalfe said.

"She said to me, 'dad, can I bring some of these to the sick kids in the hospital?'

"I think at that stage, it was 18 or 19 eggs we brought, but for her to do that herself was an amazing thing — it made me feel proud."

The next year, the family decided they wanted to do "something bigger" and it has become somewhat of a family tradition now.

"There can be a lot of bad publicity about Ballymun, but things like this help the community come together and they're always there to help," Mr Metcalfe said.

Lauren said the family received close to 1,000 eggs last year and it was hard to fit them all in the van that was transporting them.

"Last year was the biggest one because we had 993 eggs and it was crazy to see how many people actually donated eggs," she said.

"It was even hard to take a picture of the eggs as we couldn't fit them all in."

Despite her young age, Ellamay is not a novice, having been involved with the project since she was two.

When asked about why she wanted to help her sister, she said: "We get to donate to the sick people."