A Co Clare hotel is to end a local meal delivery service it had operated since March 12th and donated over 1000 meals to vulnerable members of the Doolin, Lisdoonvarna and Kilshanny areas.
Quick into action at the first sign of lockdown, Hotel Doolin, was one of the first hospitality businesses in Ireland to recognise the needs of its community and turn their attentions to them.
Despite, wanting to continue with the service, Hotel Doolin struggled to receive any funding to keep the free service going and with a local day care centre, The Stella Maris Day Centre, resuming its meals on wheels service from today, it felt it could pass on the responsibility.
General Manager of Hotel Doolin, Donal Minihane, said: “We’re very sad, heartbroken even, to be finishing up our service for the elderly and vulnerable today. Since the 12th March we prepared and delivered over 1000 meals free of charge and we realised just how important our presence was.
“We didn’t even realise when we went ahead with the idea that it would be needed for this long, but we’ve loved every minute of doing it and glad we could bring a taste of what we’re great at – service with a smile – to those in need. We’ve met some amazing people, made some great friends and have heard countless stories on our daily journeys around the townlands of Doolin, Lisdoonvarna and Kilshanny.
“The last few weeks have been eye-opening and a really worthwhile experience for us and the members of the community we have met, and we hope we’ll be in a position to do things like this again in the future. For now, we’re looking forward to still calling and sitting outdoors with our new friends over a cuppa. I’d like to thank the team at the Hotel and The Burren Metheil Volunteer Group who helped with this initiative – their kindness was truly appreciated.
“We would have loved to continue with this service for free but despite our best efforts we couldn’t secure the small amount of funding to help us cover just some of the cost of the food. In normal circumstances, continuing to fund this ourselves might have been an option, but sadly in these times it just isn’t possible to continue with the service indefinitely. The few of us still at the Hotel now need to turn all our attention and effort into picking our business off the floor and getting our much-missed colleagues back to work.”
For more information on the impact Hotel Doolin has on its local community, visit hoteldoolin.ie