Oblate Youth Service News

As the Oblate Youth Service has grown over the years it's become obvious to longer standing members that a huge pool of diverse talents exists within the group. There was also a consensus building that members wanted to give their time to the less fortunate more frequently than just once a year. 

 

The Oblates have traditionally based themselves in areas of greater social need and as such there is little shortage of tasks which could be tackled within the parishes. A list of needs and possible volunteering opportunities was compiled by the OYS Irish Regional Committee and circulated among members and the one which appealed to me was decorating and improving the living spaces of people who maybe did not have the funds or wherewithal to tackle the tasks themselves.

 

I immediately volunteered and went about contacting others in the group who I knew from general over a pint chat in the cafes of Lourdes, shared an interest in building and DIY. St. Vincent de Paul had identified a parishioner who's house has fallen into quite a bad state of disrepair over the years and it wasn't within his means to bring it up to a clean and healthy standard himself. 

Donal O' Shea who is Dublin based visited the gentleman, scoped out the work we needed to do and from there we organised the tools and materials we needed. Donal, Peter, Eoghan and I started at 9am Saturday morning August 11th with the plan of completely over hauling the living space in a weekend and causing as little disruption and anxiety to the gentleman who's house it was. We stripped (all 6!!) layers of wallpaper from the walls, prepared and sized them, removed the old carpet, cleaned and undecorated the wood work and painted the ceiling on the Saturday. On Sunday August 12th we filled gaps, glossed the woodwork, painted the walls and bought carpet for the floor. We called on the services of friend of a number of OYS members who trims aircraft cabin to fit the carpet. As it turned out the carpet remnant we had bought was a little too big for the room and the cut off allowed us to replace the carpet on the stairs and landing too.

 

At a small cost to us of 2 days of our free time we turned a dingy room into a bright clean space the gentleman could sit in and feel a lot more comfortable. SVP have identified a number of other parishioners who's lives could be be improved a little bit in the same way so we intend to complete 3 more weekend projects in the same way. If you are interested in donating your time contact us at:

 

info@oblateyouthservice.com