The Knights of St Columbanus have recently held a volunteer training in Ely House, Dublin 2, for the centenary of the biggest and oldest charity meal on Christmas Day in Ireland, which has taken place since 1975 in RDS.
“We open the volunteering registration on October 1 every year online and always within a couple of days, we reach our quota for the number of volunteers we need. We could easily have 1000 volunteers, but we’re very careful. It’s an important day of the year for everybody and you don’t want to give up your Christmas Day to stand around and watch everybody else being busy,” said Trevor McNamara, Chairman of the Christmas Day Dinner Committee.
The Chairman expects to have up to 500 people attending the dinner on Christmas Day and up to 5000 meals sent out with the various agencies. “We’ll deliver 1400 meals around Dublin. The agencies would have also individual volunteers,” explained Mr McNamara.
In 1924 the dinner was solely hosted by the Knights of St Columbanus. “It would have been mainly men attending, all of whom would be sleeping rough on the streets. A hundred years after we also provide as warm a welcome as we possibly can to the needy, lonely and to refugee families,” said Mr McNamara.
The Christmas Day Dinner Committee members instructed almost 300 volunteers during the training sessions on different topics including task assignments, health and safety protocols, and logistical arrangements, ensuring that all volunteers are well-equipped.