Coffee Morning/Craft Fair to help local business and Africa orphans

Still on the prowl to find suitable and not-expensive Christmas presents? writes Brian Byrne.

Well, make them sustainable too and invest in local. That way, as the late Pat Dunlea always said, you'll help to 'keep your town in business by keeping your business in the town'.

A good place to start is the Coffee Morning & Craft Fair in the Town Hall Heritage Centre this Thursday. Organised by Esther Reddy (right) to raise funds for the Maintain Hope charity that helps orphans in Kenya, getting down there will also help keep our local businesses in shape.

The event will offer a showcase to a number of local enterprises, including The Good Food Gallery, Dave Clancy Flowers, Nolans' Butchers, The Cottonwood Tree, Armelle's Bakery, Slate Creation, Nanci Design, Mary Cahill Knitwear, The Suas Knitting Group, Bare Essentials, and Richard Wixted Christmas Wreaths.

That lineup alone indicates just a part of an amazing level of business activity in a village/town with just one main street.

The date, 8 December, has its own significance, being the traditional day when 'country people' went to Dublin for their Christmas shopping. With the advent of local shopping centres providing most of what Dublin used to have to offer in our own regions, that's not such a big deal any more.

But at our village level, we have businesses and craft artists trying to make a living against the might of those same shopping centres. Think about it—they're also offering us their services in the place where we all live, pumping a life's-blood of commercial activity through our streetscape.

So, help them to keep the lights on that show Kilcullen is alive and well. And popping in to Thursday's Coffee Morning & Craft Fair is a good start.


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