By Donna Dunne
Enable Ireland’s garden centre on Sandymount Avenue officially opened their Christmas shop on the 14th November. The Avenue Garden Centre is focused on providing horticulture training for adults with physical disabilities and is also open to the public.
NewsFour spoke to co-ordinator Gráinne Magee about how the garden centre came about. “We started the garden centre years ago, it must have been about 12 years ago. It was never set up as a business but some of the service users wanted to grow seeds. When the parents and neighbours came to see what we were doing, they wanted to buy some, so that’s how it developed.”
There are three service users receiving training in the garden centre at the moment; Emma Felton, Caroline Farrell and David O‘Reilly, who were anxiously waiting on Santa to cut the ribbon so that they could get back to work.
Santa was lucky enough to have Oscar O’Reilly assist him in the opening of the Christmas shop and afterwards he asked Santa “Have you got any sweets for me?”
Emma Felton introduced herself to NewsFour by saying “I am the real boss and not everybody knows that.” Well Emma, your secret is out now. Anybody heading down to the garden centre, you know who to go to if you need help. Emma led the way around the shop showing us the colourful decorations, ornaments, traditional gifts, the Enable Ireland 2014 calendar, the Enable Ireland Christmas cards and all the other Christmas decorations. She also pointed out that there are Christmas trees for sale in the Garden Centre this year.
The garden centre seeks the help of the local community to get behind them and support their Christmas shop this year. All profits go back to Enable Ireland. Supporting Enable Ireland ensures that services like this centre are funded so that they can grow and build a future for users with physical disabilities.
Pictured above: Santa and Oscar O’Reilly.
