What started with a few neighbours and a pot of coffee has become a tradition spanning more than three decades for Anne and her daughter Annemarie in Labane, Ardrahan.
Anne hosted her first Hospice Coffee Morning after experiencing the support of Galway Hospice’s Home Care Team when her father was living with lung cancer.
“My father was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992 and he only lived six months. While he was living with me, the Home Care Team came to us. They were absolutely amazing,” Anne recalls.
“He died in January 1993, and I saw something in the paper about a Hospice Coffee Morning. I said to my husband, ‘Could we do it?’ He said he would match whatever we raised. I collected six hundred and something. And he said, ‘I’m not flipping giving you €600, but we’ll bring it up to €1,000!’ So we did. And that was the first year.”
Apart from three years when they were unable to host, the family has continued the tradition ever since. Last year was their biggest Coffee Morning yet, raising more than €3,000.
Over the years, it has become a real community occasion, with neighbours helping out, Annemarie taking care of the baking and generations of local families coming through the door.
“We started off with a lot of older people who used to come. And now we have their sons and daughters and their grandchildren. It starts at 10 o’clock and it usually goes on until four or five in the evening. It’s great. We love doing it,” Anne says.
For Anne, however, the reason for continuing after more than 30 years remains the same.
“It’s our way of giving back to Galway Hospice for all of the marvellous work they do and the help they give when we really need it. That’s what it means. It takes away that fear that you’re bringing somebody home and you’re not a nurse and you don’t know how you’re going to manage to look after them. Suddenly those people are there,” she explains.
“It’s the relief of knowing there’s somebody there at the end of the phone, and if you say, ‘Can you come?’, they’re there. And they’re so good to the family of the people who need help as well. It’s not just all about the patients. The entire family benefits from it. They’re all looked after.”
For more than three decades, Anne, Annemarie and their community in Labane have been part of an incredible Galway tradition of coming together over coffee to support Galway Hospice. Since the campaign began in 1992, Coffee Mornings across Galway have raised more than €2.7 million, showing just how much these simple gatherings can achieve.
And Anne has a simple message for anyone considering hosting their own Coffee Morning:
“I guarantee you, hold one. If it’s only for ten people, hold one. I guarantee you’ll hold it next year and every other year. It doesn’t matter how much you raise. Anything is a help.”
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