David Smyth Catering
2016 has been a great year for David Smyth Catering. We are eternally grateful for the success that we have enjoyed as a company, but as individuals we are aware that there are many living in our society that are not as fortunate as we are. With this in mind, as a team we try to take time out whenever we can to offer our services free of charge to help the needy.
We are full of admiration for the good folk of “A Lending Hand” – a voluntary Dublin group that provides food and other basic necessities for the city’s homeless. To date we have made a number of visits to Dame Street with hot food and sweet treats in the vans, but our contribution doesn’t begin to touch what is actually needed here. When we head away cold and tired, we are going home. To these folks, “home” (in this day and age!) could be a doorway or under a bridge.
We will continue to head in whenever we can, but you can help too. You can find details of A Lending Hand on Facebook.
Sometimes I have been known to make too much food, but we try to not let it go to waste. Whenever we can, we drop some food and sweet treats of Temporary Emergency Accommodation Midlands (T.E.A.M) in Mullingar. Again, if you can help this winter, please do.
This year, the family and I organised a Family Fun Day to raise funds for three cancer charities in Westmeath – LARCC, North Westmeath Hospice and the Irish Cancer Society’s Night Nurse service. The Family Fun Day was held in memory of my late father, Stan Smyth, and we had set ourselves a target of €10,000. With all the support we received from family, friends, local businesses and all who attended, we made €19,651 – nearly double our target!
We know he would have been proud and so overwhelmed by this and again, we thank everyone for their amazing support.
I always visit my mother for lunch on Christmas Day so I had a few spare hours to spare on Christmas morning 2015. In partner-ship with Frank Dillon of the Lions Club and John Smith of St Vincent De Paul, we provided a hot lunch to the less well off in Mullingar and the surrounding towns and villages. We cooked the lunch and the lads organised the distribution of the hot lunches to 147 people around the county!
Thanks to Kenneth at Greene Farm Foods for sponsoring the turkey and Sean Murphy for providing the Ham! I happened to deliver 2 lunches to a young man who was battling cancer and who has sadly since passed away. It was nice to think that he got a hot lunch on Christmas day through our groups efforts.
We are only happy to help however and wherever we can.
