NORTHSIDE boxing star and World Silver medallist Kellie Harrington has received funding from both Dublin City Council and her local community to go towards her training.
Kellie, from Portland Row, who won a silver medal in the light-welterweight final in Kazakhstan in May, will not receive funding from the Irish Sports Council until at least March 2017.
However, thanks to Susan Mangan, Kellie’s close friend, more than €7,500 has become available – €5,000 of discretionary funding from Dublin City Council and the sale of a souvenir booklet highlighting her success.
Ms Mangan said it was very easy to get local councillors on board to help Kellie’s training fund.
“I just tagged them on a Facebook status and they helped immediately,” she said.
“Nial (Ring), Gary (Gannon) and Brian (Mohan) set up an interview 24 hours later to discuss how we would get money for Kellie’s boxing fund.”
The souvenir booklet is selling for €2 in the area. Money raised will be added to a further €2,500 that has been raised in sponsorship from local businesses in return for advertising in the booklet. This was also a non-strenuous task for Ms Mangan.
“I didn’t even have to finish my sentence because when I mentioned it was for Kellie Harrington we got something like 25 businesses giving €100 each,” she said.
Kellie received a fantastic welcomed when she returned to St Vincent’s Girls’ School, North William Street after her triumph. Over 250 girls, along with neighbours, councillors and TDs greeted one of their own.
“Kellie must have went to every girl and talked about what would they like to do when they finish school,” said Ms Mangan,
“She’s a great role model and a lot of them (pupils) are looking to take up boxing.”
As part of the fundraiser, local councillor Nial Ring (Ind) put forward a motion seeking support for Kellie and emailed it to other councillors in the area.
“Within 15 minutes the other seven councillors got back to me saying that they’d like their name associated,” said Cllr Ring.
“It was a unanimous and a very easy decision and we were very happy to do it.”
Cllr Ring and his fellow councillors were also involved in the booklet and he is very proud of the feedback from the locality.
“It just goes to show the determination, practice and everything she (Kellie) has put in,” he said. “She’s so inspiring to the area and that can be seen in the brochure we made with all the messages of support.
“Kellie gives a lot back to the community. She teaches boxing at the local clubs, encouraging more girls to box. She does a lot of that under the radar because she has that huge sense of giving back to an area that has given her so much. The family is well liked in the area and it is lovely to see people who have done well from around here not forgetting their roots.”
REPORT: Brein McGinn
