Boys’ School Donate Blankets for Project Island Child

Founder of Island Child Charitable Trust, Danielle Bergin once lived in a car and ate in soup kitchens. She knows what it means to be down on her luck, to feel lonely inside, to watch every cent and walk the streets daily, looking for free opportunities. To sit in libraries and read the paper, trying to pass time, waiting for the next free soup kitchen dinner before returning to her car to sleep. She remembers that as a transient, no one ever stopped to ask her if she was alright. 

Through a change in fortune, Ms Bergin turned her life around and is now helping the homeless herself. She had inherited a small amount of money, just enough to buy a small, run down shop in Panmure. Noticing families sleeping outside in their cars, she invited them in from the cold and started letting people stay in her front room for free. From there Island Child Charitable Trust was formed. 

Since 2005, Ms Bergin has helped over 300 families find shelter, taking them in until they can be rehoused. Today the Boys’ School played a part in assisting her charity, having gathered over 300 blankets and items of linen to help keep families warm. At chapel this morning, Ms Bergin gratefully received the blankets along with a cheque for $1385, the proceeds of a recent family chapel. She told the boys that in the current housing crisis, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find rental properties and make ends meet so donations such as this help her cause immensely.