Bagging it up for charity

Volunteers can raise up to €1,500 a day packing customers' bags at the supermarket checkout, with Catherine Foley.

THE CASH REGISTERS may not be jingling in our supermarkets this Christmas as loudly as they were during the Celtic Tiger years - but shoppers are still happy to part with money in return for having their bags packed at the end of a tiring grocery shop.

Charities report that there is a lot of money to be raised by packing hassled customers' bags. The Cork branch of Down Syndrome Ireland, for example, recently collected €5,000 over two nights bag-packing in Dunnes Stores in Bishopstown on the outskirts of Cork city. With Christmas around the corner, the association hopes shoppers will dig even deeper when 80 members take to the check-out counters to pack bags this weekend at Marks Spencer in the Merchant Quay complex. They aim to raise €10,000.

Chemical engineer Tadhg Wall will pack bags for three hours on Friday night, while his wife will be on duty the next evening for another three hours. The money raised will go towards funding speech and language therapists for the children of the organisation's 300 members in Cork.

John O'Connor, fundraising manager of Down Syndrome Ireland (Cork) says some of the teenagers with Down syndrome, who are already benefiting from speech therapy, will be packing bags alongside the adults over the three days.

A group of supervised scouts in the Harold's Cross/Mount Argus area of Dublin collects up to €2,000 over weekends, according to Neil Mahony of Scouting Ireland. Scouts pack bags at different times during the year if the supermarket allows them.

They have bag-packed twice this year and how much they earn depends on the store, the time of year and how long they do it for.

In Tesco supermarkets, the demand to pack bags is "steady throughout the year", says the company's spokesman Séamus Banim. All 116 Tesco stores around the country set aside two weekends a month for individual charities to come, pack bags and collect money.There is often "a two to three month waiting list" in the customer service books, with local charities booking a weekend slot months in advance.

Local groups, from soccer clubs and GAA clubs to hospice care and developing world charities, all want to avail of this easy method of fundraising. Tesco is happy to oblige, says Banim, once the fund-raising is a locally based charity or community group.

The arrangement is simple enough. Organised volunteers stand at the end of each checkout and pack customers' bags, collecting donations in plastic buckets. For weary shoppers, it's a happy exchange. They are grateful to have their shopping bags packed for them, and will gladly drop a few coins into the bucket. And there is the added feel-good factor of contributing to a good cause.

Claire Greene helped raise money for her local Dog Action Welfare Group by packing bags in the nearby Marks Spencer supermarket. Greene was happy to spend two hours packing bags one morning in aid of a good cause. There were six tills and she and fellow packers worked through the day from 10.30am to 9pm,netting a total of up to €1,500.

"A lot of people gave me fivers and then other people were giving a euro or two, the change from their shopping," she says. "Others were throwing 10 and 20 cent pieces in. We were at every till. You are so busy packing that you are not paying attention to what people are putting in."

The time flew, she says. She found that the majority of people liked having someone on hand to pack their bags. "I made a point of asking every single person if they'd like me to pack their bags," she says. "I myself would be finicky enough. I would have a system, so there's not a hope I'd let young people pack the bag for me - you'd have your tomatoes in the bottom of the bag - but I'd always give them a bit of money."