€10,000 raised for charity during Athlone IT Rag week

A sum of €10,000 was raised for charity during Athlone IT"s Rag Week earlier this year. Presentations were recently made to a number of charities who will now benefit from the Rag Week fundraising events in late February. The charities were: Westmeath Special Olympics, AIT"s Hardship Fund, Midlands Simon Community, Peter Bradley Foundation, Sunshine, and the Irish Wheelchair Association. Entertainments Manager with the Athlone IT Students" Union, Colin Fahy, said that Rag Weeks in some other colleges had attracted criticism but that fundraising achievements such as the €10,000 generated at the local institute showed that the week can be a force for good. 'In addition to fundraising during Rag Week, we organised about 10-15 charity events over the course of the year so quite a significant amount of money was raised by students in Athlone,' he said. During this year"s Rag Week, fundraisers which helped to generate the €10,000 total included: The Rodge Bull, a "slave auction", collection buckets, the sale of Rag Week t-shirts, a hypnotist, and a "spin the wheel" event. Mr Fahy said that the sum of €10,000 was roughly on a par with what had been raised during previous Rag Weeks at Athlone IT.