Med Day raises €23,000 for charity
By Sylvester Phelan | Nov 26 2013
—The money will be divided among 10 charities, including UCD SVP and the Student Welfare Fund —Arts Day raised a further €1,100 for ISPCCUCD Medical Society (MedSoc) have confirmed that they raised a grand total of €23,000 for charity during the course of Med Day’s fundraising events, exceeding lasts year’s total of €22,000.Med Day, organised by the MedSoc committee, took place on Friday, October 11th, commencing early on Friday morning and running until the early hours of Saturday morning, in various locations both on and off campus.Auditor of MedSoc, Kate Murphy said, “The money will be divided up between St. Vincent’s Foundation, Mater Foundation, National Maternity Hospital, Cardiac Risk in the young, Pieta House, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Irish Hospice Foundation, Medical Students Relief Overseas, the Student Welfare Fund, and UCD Saint Vincent de Paul.”Over 600 volunteers acting as collectors and donated their time to the fundraising initiative. Collectors were stationed all across Dublin from 7:00am, focusing on southside locations near to campus, but stretching from Dalkey to Phibsborough across the entire city centre as well, at communal locations such as at traffic lights and Dart and Luas stations. A Mycharity.ie page was also set up to facilitate online donations.Murphy was very happy with the event saying, “[It] went extremely well overall, we are delighted to be able to contribute such a significant amount of money to such worthy Irish charities. We are so grateful to everyone who collected and contributed, and to the committee who worked tirelessly to pull the whole day off successfully.”Various activities and entertainment went on throughout the day, including a drag pompom dance, Med’s Got Talent and a Silent Disco. The Med’s Got Talent event and the silent disco both took place in the Clubhouse Bar, with prizes donated by Bank of Ireland for the events.For the pompom parade, which commenced just before midday, MedSoc members dressed in drag and began the parade in UCD before ending ending in the main square in Trinity, while fellow society members collected donations from the public. Other events that took place included a human foosball table and a bungee run.Arts Day, run by ArtsSoc, also got final fundraising totals in this week. The group were successful in raising €1,100 for the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC).The most popular event of the day was a slave auction in the Clubhouse Bar, which contributed the bulk of the funds. The event, which had not run since 2011, was well received and the committee are hopeful that they will be able to build on the success of this year going forward.