Hospice group plans Irish 'thank-you day'

THE IRISH Hospice Foundation is planning Ireland’s first “Thank You Day” next month on Thursday, November 25th, to coincide with Thanksgiving Day in the US.

Yesterday it launched two fundraising initiatives to mark the campaign. The Thank You Book, a gratitude journal for noting the good things in your life, is being promoted for the Christmas market. Scattered through it are thank you notes from people such as Martin Sheen, Seamus Heaney, Gabriel Byrne, Sinéad O’Connor and Maeve Binchy.

Gabriel Byrne’s note simply says “For breath, thank you” while Christy Moore writes “That day, when you stopped and asked ‘how are you?’ – it meant the world to me”. Author Edna O’Brien says thank you to “the great writers who gave me the wine of astonishment and to the great wine-growers who gave me the wine”.

In his contribution, Nobel prize-winner Seamus Heaney endorses the poet Czeslaw Milosz when he said “I felt gratitude, therefore I believed.”

Heaney adds: “There is universal grá in that ‘gratitude’, and even though ‘believed’ is without a grammatical object, it’s still an act of faith and a defiance of nihilism.”

The book was designed by U2 sleeve designer Steve Averill and edited by Irish Times writer Róisín Ingle.

The Irish Hospice Foundation has also introduced a range of thank you cards containing some of these messages. Both the book and cards for sale in shops around the country or from www.thankyouproject.ie.

All funds raised will go to the children’s hospice homecare programme. The foundation hopes to raise €100,000 from the campaign. It will go towards funding the Republic’s first paediatric palliative care consultant and outreach nurses in the community.

The idea for a Thank You Day came from producer Bill Hughes who had admired Thanksgiving Day in the US and thought that the foundation could capitalise on it.

“If we could just work towards making Thank You Day an annual celebration that would be a dream come true,” he said.

The foundation’s incoming chairman Michael O’Reilly said the foundation was not sending a political message, saying that we should be grateful for what we have and stop complaining. “It is a very personal message,” he said. People were touched by small and big gestures from others every day and we should acknowledge them.

Clinical psychologist and Irish Times contributor Marie Murray said being grateful was good for mental health, physical wellbeing and emotional stability.

“It dilutes stress. It gives courage and hope. It can help us set goals and achieve them.”

This is the sixth publication from the Irish Hospice Foundation.

Last year’s Zest! cookbook raised about €300,000 for the charity.

www.thankyouproject.ie

www.hospice-foundation.ie