Luke is on his way to St Louis

A LITTLE Southside boy is on his way to America for life changing treatment thanks to the goodwill and generosity of his local community.

Luke Herangi (4), from Cabinteely, has a form of cerebral palsy that will lead to increased spasticity or tightness in his leg muscles as he grows which will affect his mobility.

Last year, Luke was assessed and accepted for surgery in St Louis Children’s Hospital, Missouri to permanently reduce this tightness.

Backed by the whole community, the family raised the funding for the treatment in just 10 weeks and together they travelled for the life changing treatment in St Louis last Friday (March 13).

The

‘Get Luke to St Louis’ fundraiser was carried out as part of the Tesco Community Fund initiative that has seen over 800 community causes across Dublin share donations of over

?¬195,000 since its launch last July.

The milestone marks the halfway point of the initiative that will see Tesco donate

?¬1 million to community causes across the country annually.

Luke’s mum, Laura Herangi, said:

“We as a family are so grateful for all the support we have received from family, friends and the wider community, and our local Tesco store in Ballybrack, in our fundraising efforts.

“When we embarked on this journey in September we really did not expect to have met our target and to be travelling to St Louis for Luke’s surgery this month.

?

She added:

“It is really down to the support of so many people who came on board and held coffee mornings, cocktail nights, bag packing fundraisers, and used their blue tokens to vote for our cause in the Tesco Community Fund.

“The awareness raised in such a short space of time has enabled us to

‘Get Luke to St Louis’ and we will be forever grateful for this support.

?

Christine Heffernan, Corporate Affairs Director at Tesco Ireland, added:

“We’re hugely grateful to all of our customers and colleagues who have helped decide how the fund is shared by nominating and voting for their local good causes.

“We’re really proud to be able to contribute to these deserving causes and to build people’s awareness of these services in our local communities.

“We’re now urging communities to keep it going and nominate a local cause they feel could benefit from some support, awareness or just some recognition for the great service they provide – every little really does help.

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Lindsey Ryan, Store Manager at Tesco Ballybrack said that since the launch of the Tesco Community Fund, the local community had really gotten behind the initiative

“We would like to remind communities that the fund is open to every good cause, be it schools, youth and sports groups so get nominating to be in with a chance of receiving part of the remaining

?¬500,000 fund,

? she stated.

Every six weeks, three new community causes are nominated in each Tesco store right across the country.

Customers receive a blue token at the checkout each time they shop in their local Tesco store. They then use that blue token to vote for the local cause they would most like to receive a share of the fund.

At the end of each six weeks, the tokens are counted and up to

?¬1,000 is shared proportionally between the three good causes.

The more tokens a cause gets, the larger the share of the donation they receive.

Customers can now nominate a cause that they feel deserves a token of goodwill, for the next phase of Tesco Community Fund.

Drop into a Tesco store and pick up a nomination form.