Dundalk Special Olympics Club wins September Gala Gifts for Clubs Cash Prize

Dundalk Special Olympics Club is the proud winner of September 2024’s Gala Retail’s Gifts for Clubs Cash prize! 

Dundalk Special Olympics Club was set up to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sport for children and adults with a learning disability. 

The club has expanded extensively over the past six years. Dundalk Special Olympics club offer training in four different sports, athletics, football, bocce and swimming. Training is once a week, 8 years and up at the Blackrock Community Centre, Saturday 11:30am - 1pm.

John Farrell, Chairperson, Dundalk Special Olympic Club, said “The Athletes and Volunteers of Dundalk Special Olympics are deeply grateful for the generosity shown by Gala. At a practical level, the money will be used for bags for swimmers and be used to offset rental costs for swimming, athletics and Bocce. It also gives the club great heart to have it acknowledged by Gala, a household name throughout the country, and a super example of corporate outreach, supporting some of the most special people in our community. Again, your generous gift is much appreciated"

We also heard from the athletes!

Kyle: "I love playing golf with the club. It means a lot because my grandfather played, his brother and uncles. Johnny and Edwin help me play good golf and I love to meet new friends, and I love being a Special Olympics Athlete."

Peadar: "I love my football in Special Olympics. We play every Wednesday and Sean our coach trains us how to do skills, dribbling, and passing the ball. We go to competitions and tournaments and meet other teams. Sometimes we have penalty shootout with coach Sean in goals, it's great fun and I go home sweating."

Philip: "My favourite sport is swimming, it is really hard work, but great. We are going to a big Special Olympics competition in October; I am looking forward to it. When we finish our training our coach Kim sometimes shows us how to dive, this is great fun. Kim is a really great diver!"

If you would like more information about Dundalk Special Olympics Club here is a link to their Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/DundalkSO

A huge thank you to all the clubs who entered the Gala Gifts for Club competition. If you didn’t win this time around your entry will go forward to next month’s draw so there’s no need to enter again.