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Young Students Show Their Hearts In The Right Place
14 Apr 2009
This week glowing tributes were paid to the civic pride of the two young man by School Principal Shay Bannon, teacher Martina O'Reilly, Michael O'Brien, Chairman of the High School Board of Management and chairperson of the Clonmel Heartsafe Committee, Senator Phil Prendergast. For their Young Entrepreneurs project, the duo produced in booklet form, a walking guide for Clonmel, Slievenamon and the Comeragh Mountains in conjunction with a 'Country Code'.

The product was unveiled at the recent South Tipperary County Council Enterprise Awards and Clonmel Chamber of Commerce are interested in publishing the booklet in a new brochure promoting the town.

Having completed the project, the two young entrepreneurs decided to take another giant step forward. Having learned from their research about the problems of child obesity through their walking project, they identified the need to have a defibrillator in the school and set about raising money.

"We felt that every school should have a defibrillator and we received fantastic support
from the students in the school," said James Dillon.

The boys organised a fund raising sponsored walk for first years and managed to raise €4,836.
"It was a lot of money. The lads in first year were absolutely brilliant to get sponsorship. We raised enough money to buy the defibrillator and we still had a lot left over to give to the Chernobyl Project," said Padraig Power.

Principal Shay Bannon said the boys showed great spirit and commitment to take on such a
huge task. "It was a tremendous achievement by the two boys. The school was looking for a defibrillator and now we have one thanks to the wonderful efforts of these two first year students," he said. Teacher Martina O'Reilly said the two students had produced a high standard walking booklet as part of their Young Entrepreneur project and on top of carrying out that project showed great social awareness by taking it on further and applying themselves to such a mammoth fund raising campaign to fund a defibrillator for the school. She said the two students, as a result of their project, had qualified for the Young Entrepreneur All Ireland Finals on May 15th in Tullamore Board of Management chairman Michael O'Brien, said the school was very proud of the boys' achievements.

"They showed tremendous initiative to embark on such an ambitious project and displayed great community spirit to provide such an urgently needed resource at the school," he said.

Senator Phil Prendergast said that the work undertaken by the two first year students would make a difference for the whole school. "They showed great leadership qualities in motivating all of their first year colleagues to raise such a marvellous amount of money for such a worthwhile cause. They deserve great praise" said
Senator Prendergast.

Senator Prendergast said Clonmel was the only Heartsafe town in the country "Clonmel has been very progressive on this matter and the action taken by these two young men greatly enhances the huge strides the town has made in such a short
space of time," she said.