Posted online: Mar 2nd, 2010

The people of Inishowen have been furiously texting and Emailing in recent days to ensure their favourite community group tops the poll in the AIB Better Ireland Awards.

The annual funding sees the bank give each of its branches 10,000 euro to award to local projects. The community then decide how the funding is divided up between the three short-listed at each branch.

Six Inishowen community projects have been selected, with Greencastle Community Childcare, Craigtown National School and Tiernasligo National School selected from the Moville AIB branch and Buncrana Youth Club, Inishowen Children’s Autism Related Education (i.C.A.R.E) and St Oran’s National School in the running from the Buncrana branch.

Those with the highest votes will receive 5,000 euro, second place are awarded 3,000 euro and third place wins 2,000 euro.

The funding is hugely important to the local groups, as Jamie Wilson, chairperson of the Parent’s Association at Tiernasligo National School explained.

He said: “We were absolutely delighted to be short listed in the final three. It was the school secretary who told me about it and we decided to put the application in. We hoped that we would be chosen but there are so many worthwhile projects you just never know. 

“It’s a lot of money, especially in the times that are in it now. The main area we want to invest in is what’s called the Old Boys’ School. It has generally got run down over the years but we’re hoping to renovate it so it can be used by the children for different activities. As well as that, it used to be used by the community for numerous events and we’d like to get it all up and running again. 

‘We’ve only got 64 children in the school so every vote is a huge help. While you can text your support, you can also Email your vote as well on www.betterireland.ie and that’s absolutely free. You can only Email once a day but even one or two votes counts. We’d be delighted with any support and really appreciate all the help we get.”

To vote for Tiernasligo National School, either vote online or text Moville, followed by a space, followed by C to 51303.

The same method applies for the other two entrants, however submit A for Greencastle Community Childcare and B for Craigtown National School.

For the Buncrana branches, text BUNCRAN followed by a space and A for Buncrana Youth Club, B for i.C.A.R.E and C for St Oran’s NS to 51303.