Two enterprising Transition Year students from the Christian Brothers’ School in Tramore, Co, Waterford, have found a novel way to help pay for the restoration of their local church.
Daniel Connolly and Dylan Hennessy have started a business making clocks from old slates being removed from the church roof.
The clocks are being offered for sale at €20 each, with the profits going to help the fund-raising efforts of the Holy Cross Church parish committee.
The clocks are made individually to order and each comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.
So far, 150 of them have been ordered, and parish priest Fr Michael Twomey says demand is expected to rise in the run-up to Christmas.
“It’s going very well. They reckon they will get to 250 for Christmas,” he predicted, adding that he was highly impressed when his two young parishioners presented him with their business plan. The clocks are an ingenious idea and allow people to buy a bit of history, as the slates are nearly 150 years old.”
In all, ten thousand slates are being replaced and in one of the parish’s other fund-raising ventures, a ‘Donate a Slate’ campaign, benefactors have been invited to buy a slate for the roof for €50.
Extensive work on the €1.5m project on the historic building is already under way.
The 150-year old church needs extensive renovation on its roof, spire, external fabric and insulation and work is set to continue until Easter of next year.
Holy Cross Church is a National Monument and a protected structure, so the exact same materials that were used when it was first built have to be used in the refurbishment.
No comments:
Post a Comment