Students’ virtual Walk to Lourdes raises €1,800 for homeless

Two Laois students have raised €1,800 in a virtual ‘Walk to Lourdes’ challenge for a homelessness charity.

Sadhbh Dunne and Cara Phelan encouraged their community to collectively walk 1,965km – the distance from their Portlaoise school and Lourdes, France – as part of their St John Paul II award.

So far they have raised €1,790 for Portlaoise Action to Homelessness (PATH), a charity which supports the homeless in inner City Dublin and the two students’ locality. The two girls had been hoping to raise €1,500 and exceeded their target midway through their Lenten campaign.

“It is going better than we could have expected as the school and the  community really got behind it ‘we reached Lourdes on day 8 of Lent, “Sadhbh told The Irish Catholic. “I’m really enjoying it as I love walking and I was delighted to see the support from everyone.”

Fr David Vard of Portlaoise parish said in a video on the Walk to Lourdes Instagram profile that completing the walk “is a great achievement”.

“Thanks to Sadhbh and Cara for their work in organising the walk, and also Bishop Denis Nulty, who helped launch a few weeks ago,” he said.

The GoFundMe page for the walk will remain open until April 3.