Long-established local Galway business, T. O’Higgins Homevalue Hardware, recently held a fundraising event with a unique twist in aid of COPE Galway.
Taking inspiration from “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!”, T. O’Higgins organised their own “I’m Not a Celebrity… But I Can Do It” event, where staff member, Sean Black, volunteered to eat just about anything he was given.
Sean, who works part-time while also studying law, said the idea formed when he jokingly told his co-workers that he could eat anything since he had lost his sense of taste after contracting COVID-19. They then came up with the idea for Sean to eat crazy foods to raise funds for COPE Galway.
They started planning and promoting their event, and set a goal to hold the event within two weeks and to
raise €2,000. “We were scared that we weren’t going to make the goal in two weeks, but we managed to do it in the first week.”
On the day, the Black Cat restaurant presented Sean with the dishes, which included sheep’s tongue, monkfish eyeball, a fish gut milkshake and live crickets. “Some of them were really bad. That monkfish eye was awful,” Sean said.
Sean ate it all and, while he does not plan on doing that again, he said doing it for COPE Galway made it
worthwhile.
So far they have raised over €4,000, thanks to the generosity of people in the community.
“I’m from Corrach Buí, in Westside. Throughout the years there have been a lot of neighbours who have
moved out of homes and ended up homeless and stuff. So, I kind of see it a lot, you know. I am really glad I could help COPE Galway.”
Sean Black