‘All of us together making a difference’ to homeless

A Kingscourt family recently collected dozens of shoeboxes from members of the Cootehill Hen’s Shed for distribution among homeless people in Dublin.

Sonya MacMahon and her family - husband Gerard, daughters Courtney and Katie, and son Jason - have been running Cavan Ladies Feed Us since 2020, an organisation made up of volunteers to help the homeless.

With the support of the whole community, the family feeds as many as 150 people three or four nights a week, provides dinner and presents on Christmas Day, and runs an outreach service across the inner city and suburban areas.

“We run a homeless organisation in Kingscourt with the help of local volunteers,” Sonya told the Anglo Celt this week. “We travel up to Dublin three nights a week to the GPO and feed about 150 people each night. I also run an outreach van and we travel to the beaches in Dublin, Malahide, Howth, etc as well as the inner city. We service about 40 tents seven nights a week.”

Cavan Ladies Feed Us collects for those less fortunate across Cavan and Monaghan. However, because there are no hostels locally, many people are sent to either Dundalk or Dublin. Despite this, preparations for the Christmas Day run to Dublin are well underway at this stage and hundreds of the most deserving people are in for a real treat.

“I cook the dinners on Christmas morning. My husband and family travel up and provide the homeless with a four course meal, shoebox and a selection box,” continued Sonya.

“The RDS does provide Christmas dinner for the homeless but we are finding that a lot of people can’t get a bus to the RDS. At this stage we know most of them personally; you get to know people when you are providing them with food. On Christmas Day my husband and children travel up and I stay behind to cook Christmas dinner for the family. I travel up on Christmas Eve.”

The seeds for the effort were sown just after the first lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2020. Soyna and her daughters went to Dublin and, while there, saw a number of volunteers feeding the homeless. “My daughters said to me ‘Mam can we do that?’ so we did and it has all grown from there,” explained Soyna.

“It can be difficult sometimes; last night, for example, one of our volunteers went to a tent only to find the man there had been stabbed and during the week we learned that one of the people we see regularly died, so it can be hard at times because we get to know these people very well.”

According to the latest homeless figures issued in September, a total of 14,760 people were in emergency accommodation. This represents a rise of 1.9% on the previous month; 4,561 of those in emergency accommodation were children.

“One of the biggest problems that we have in Cavan and Monaghan is that we don’t have a hostel and local people who become homeless get sent to Dundalk or Dublin,” continued Soyna.

“Sometimes Cavan County Council puts people into B&Bs. Something I would love to do actually is work with Cavan County Council on raising more awareness around the issue. Without the help and support of the people of Cavan and Monaghan, Cavan ladies Feed Us wouldn’t exist to be honest.

People make sandwiches and cook food for us and there are people then who contribute to the shoeboxes, etc. So it’s all of us together making a difference.”