Family to support charity in memory of devoted mother

Family to support charity in memory of devoted mother

13 February 2013

A COFFEE morning is being held in memory of a founder member of the Downe Residential Project in Downpatrick.

The February 23 event in Ballee Non-Subscribing Church Hall is being organised by the family of Mrs. Hazel Kelly who passed away last November.

The coffee morning — which runs from 10am until noon — will raise funds towards the construction of a new dedicated facility at the Killough Road in Downpatrick being spearheaded by the local charity which Mrs. Kelly was associated with for many years. The organisation is now known as MainstayDRP.

Last September, Mrs. Kelly asked her family to organise a coffee morning to help raise funds for the new building in Downpatrick. She died in November, but her family are to fulfil her wish and hope the forthcoming coffee morning will be well attended.

The Downe Residential Project was established in 1989 in Downpatrick by a group of parents, which included Mrs. Kelly, and carers whose prime aim was to provide and develop a range of quality care and support services for people with a learning disability and also for the families and the carers.

Mainstay DRP provides services which include a range of residential, day and domicilary care and supported housing services.

The organisation is currently fundraising for its Building the Dream project which is a major new facility that will address the changing needs of residents as they get older.

It will also facilitate new thinking on residential provision, new regulatory requirements for day care services and provide respite provision to enable people with learning difficulties to live in a range of community settings which best suit their needs.

The new development will provide day care services to replace services currently provided across two sites. It will have 65 day care places, providing so-called person-centred day care and vocational programmes. There will also be two small secure residential homes each for five people and replacement respite services, providing 4,380 bed nights annually.

The new Killough Road building will also house a training and administrative centre which will provide social care training for staff.

A number of coffee mornings in aid of MainstayDRP are being held across the district during the last week in February to raise funds for the Building the Dream project.

Anyone interested in helping the Kelly family’s coffee morning by baking or donating prizes for the tombola is asked to contact Isabel, telephone 07719 132508.