KPMG supports Merchants Quay Ireland
This year KPMG Ireland celebrated the 8th annual Denis O’Connor Walking Festival raising over €25,000 Merchants Quay Ireland, which offers homelessness and drugs services through programmes spread over 14 counties. Merchants Quay Ireland is well established and has a proven track record in providing residential drug and alcohol treatment. A national voluntary organisation founded in 1969, it provides a range of care and treatment services for homeless men and women and for drug users.
This year over 100 KPMG staff, alumni, family and friends participated in the walk and raised much needed funds for a worthwhile cause. Olympic Gold Boxing Champion, Katie Taylor, joined the walk to support KPMG’s fundraising efforts and support Merchants Quay.
The goal of Merchants Quay is to build a society where the incidence of drug related harm – such as crime, poverty, HIV and homelessness – is greatly reduced, and the range and quality of drugs services are maximised. Their mission is to provide the steppingstones for every point of a man’s or woman’s journey out of homelessness and addiction, and toward a drug free life, from a cup of tea and a hot meal, to needle exchange services aimed at reducing harm related to drug use, to help with housing and employment, to detox and drug free rehab services, settlement and aftercare support.
Dates and Numbers:
· High quality services for drug users since 1989
· Residential treatment services since 1995
· St. Francis Farm Therapeutic Community since 1998
· Community assisted detox in partnership with local GPs at High Park residential service since 1998
· Serving over 6,000 drug users in programmes based in 14 counties
· 87 cents of every euro goes directly to client services and only 13 cents to administration and fundraising
KPMG’s fundraising will provide an extra 20,000 meals this year – this would be a big help to the charity which projects to serve over 100,000 meals in 2014.
The total amount raised for charities since the inception of the Denis O’Connor Walking Festival now exceeds €450,000.
