International food group Nestlé has teamed up with Barretstown – the organisation providing camps and programmes for seriously ill children and their families – in a programme that aims to raise more than €100,000 over the next three years.
Apart from raising funds, Nestlé, which employs more than 700 people in Ireland, intends to be involved in “strategic supports”, such as volunteering, mentoring and supplying product to help reduce the Kildare-based charity’s costs.
Barretstown chief executive Dee Ahearn said it was the charity’s ambition to ensure any child with a serious illness has the opportunity to participate in its programmes.
“Partnerships with organisations like Nestlé Ireland will play a hugely important role in supporting Barretstown to achieve this objective,” she said.
Established in 1994 by actor Paul Newman, Barretstown is Ireland’s largest and longest-established provider of therapeutic camps and programmes catering for the needs of children and young adolescents diagnosed with cancer or other serious illnesses.
It works with more than 25,000 children and families every year and aims to have provided services to more than 250,000 children by the end of the decade.
“We are proud to have been chosen as Nestlé Ireland’s staff charity and to have an opportunity to work closely with the largest food and beverage company in the world,” Ms Ahearn said.
100 days of Trump: “It’s like The Karate Kid, tax on, tax off, tariffs on, tariffs off”
Nestlé Ireland staff nominate and vote every few years for a charity on which to focus its support. Its community engagement programme has contributed more than €8.5 million to charitable causes in Ireland over the past two decades as well as providing business support and mentoring programmes.
Nestlé Ireland country manager Kieran Conroy said that partnering with Barretstown was an opportunity for Nestlé to bring its community work to life in a tangible way to benefit both Barretstown and the team at Nestlé.
“It’s an exciting three-year partnership and we are so proud to be involved with an organisation which is making an incredible difference to the lives of seriously ill children and families every day,” he said. “We look forward to working closely with Barretstown and playing a role, building awareness of its life-changing work.”
