Ramor Utd GFC donate to Red Cross

County Champions Ramor United made a grand gesture last Saturday night when they decided to donate the proceeds of a club auction to the Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal.

The Riverfront Hotel in Virginia was the venue of the annual Ramor United dinner dance where the Senior Championship Medal presentation was one of the high points of the night.

“It’s our annual dinner dance and prize giving night,” the outgoing chair of Ramor United, Michael Maguire explained. “We had a six very good auction items open for bidders. We had a short meeting before the event. In view of what we see every evening on the news, we decided to support people in a very unfortunate situation.

“We were of the view that the club will survive without the proceeds of the auction, so it would be better to make a donation to the Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal. It raised €5,700. We got a great response,” Michael told the Celt.

The auction items donated to help bolster the GFC’s coffers included concert tickets for Ed Sheeran and Garrett Brooks, as well as a signed framed jersey of the county champions, a signed football and a signed senior team photograph. The decision to use that money for charitable purposes was unanimously agreed in advance of the dinner dance.

Michael said: “We are hoping to make the presentation to the Red Cross this week. We thought that, because the club is well supported, this would be a better thing to do with the money. There was a feel good factor to the night because we were making the presentation of the Senior Championship Medals. This was an opportunity to show a bit of good will and reflect the feeling that most Irish people share about the plight of the Ukrainian people.”

Red Cross teams are on the ground in Ukraine working to repair infrastructure, support health facilities, and help families with life saving food and hygiene items. The donation by Ramor United will help those affected get food, medicine, shelter and water and support Red Cross efforts to assist those displaced by conflict.

The outgoing Ramor Chairman feels the money is going to a worthy cause: “If you were in the position the Ukrainian people are in, you would be looking for as much support as you could get. The club just felt we could do a little bit to alleviate that suffering.”