Hugh's House
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : h**p@h********e.ie
Mission Statement
We provide free family accommodation 365 days a year for parents who have ill children in Temple Street and Rotunda Hospitals. We saw families under severe pressure with a very ill child being separated at a time when they needed each other the most. We saw that when a child is in hospital, no one can cheer them up or excite them as much as their brothers and sisters. We nourish the families with home-cooked food to strengthen them. Take-away food will not sustain families long-term so we want to provide a nutritious dinner through volunteer cooks. Fresh air! We wanted a place for children to play and for families to visit outside of a ward environment. We wanted a place for children who face long journeys for out-patient appointments to have a place to go before they face the trip back home.
About This Cause
When their baby son Hugh was ill in hospital, Ade Stack and Marty Curley were thankful they lived in Dublin. They witnessed the struggles of other families travelling from all over the country to visit their sick children, some of whom were unable to cope financially with the expense of accommodation and meals. They were devastated when they saw children, especially babies who rarely had visitors because their families lived too far away. Beautiful baby Hugh passed away in hospital in August 2013, aged eight months, leaving his parents heartbroken. While Temple Street has limited space for parents to stay, it doesn't allow brothers or sisters to stay and the Rotunda and Holles Street have no parent accommodation. Marty and Ade saw how much Hugh loved his brothers Theo and Fred visiting and after he passed away, they purchased and renovated a house on Belvedere Place named Hugh's House to provide accommodation for seven families at a time. In partnership with Aer Lingus they also created a beautiful garden to act as a sanctuary. "We saw marriages break up like slow car crashes with the stress," says Ade. "There were people sleeping on the floor beside their sick children for months with no privacy and nowhere to have a chat." The families are referred through the hospitals and their average stay in the house is three months. Premature babies are born at 23 weeks and spend 3 months in hospital but go on to have normal and happy lives. There is no charge, all meals are provided and a team of volunteers clean and work in the house. Each beautiful family room has been fitted out and decorated by a family who lost a beloved child, making them very special. Now, an adjacent second house has been acquired, that will provide dinners and provide respite to families who arrive when a child is dying, for example, but have nowhere to congregate or talk. Hugh’s House also provides a communal laundry service for all families to stop them having to bring washing home, it’s the little things that count. Ade notes "We do this not because Hugh died, but because he lived. He was so inspiring as he kept going no matter what was thrown at him." For more information on Hugh’s house please go to www.hughshouse.ie or add us on Facebook. You can also donate to us at https://www.gofundme.com/hughshouse