 Now we have teamed up with the Lions Club here in Donegal and it's for a big online auction. It's to help families who are facing the challenges of the current cost of living crisis. And the money in particular that's raised, the profits from this will go to the Donegal Food Response Network, a vital organisation. And here to tell us a bit more is Margaret Harkin from the DLDC and also John O'Connell from the Lions Club. You're both welcome to our studio. How are you doing? Good, thanks. Good, good. Let me start John with you, if you don't mind. We'll go into the sort of the nuts and bolts of the auction. Tell us first of all the sort of items that will be up for auction. So the items are we've got 120 items. I'd say about 100 of them are vouchers for various businesses, mostly small businesses in Donegal. Vouchers of varying denominations. Yes, from 60 euros or 200. We have one, we have a golf club one that's a thousand euros but that's that's a kind of an exception. We have for shops, hotels, restaurants, pharmacies, fuel supply companies, hairdressers, theatre and golf clubs. Okay. Lots to go around for everybody. And the beauty of this is that there's a chance to get a bargain because we're going to start the bidding at approximately 70% of the value, is that right? About 60%. And then it's a case of everybody can go in and bid. It could be in increments of five or 10 depending on the size of the voucher. And we'll do this for the next week and a half or two weeks and whatever it cuts off as people will get the voucher. And that's it and cut off pointers in two weeks time. Now the thing is that somebody might end up paying the full value for the voucher, which is grand because you know you've contributed to a good cause but you might get something you know you might get you might make a saving of 30 or 40% on the voucher. That's the whole idea. It's great value. I mean this is a win-win John because everybody wins. The charity wins. The business wins because they're getting a mention on our website. But more importantly the buyer or the bidder is going to win out here. And we talk about Black Friday where it's kind of dubious as to what you get in terms of value. This is actually better because first of all this is the only website in Donegal where you can go in and get a voucher for 100 businesses. Get it online, pay for it online and then it's posted to probably on the 11th of December. It's a very simple process because a lot of people when they hear the word auction they're thinking oh no that's going to go up. That's going to you know snowball and it's going to you know things will go far away over the value. This is different and there's a website where you can actually go in and advance and browse and see if there's something there that's of interest to you. You can yeah the website there's a number of ways of getting on the website. We probably have the longest website name in history but we've shortened it and one of the ways you can link it is go to the Donegal food response website click on the link. Okay something like that. Easy peasy. Okay. Are the highlight radio website? Yes we'll put up a link to it as well. Yep. If you haven't done so. Because yeah it's biddingowl.com and I went in there earlier just to check it out and you can and if you put in that line to club it'll come up. If you put it at Donegal it comes up yeah. But the best way is Donegal food network. Exactly yeah. Okay. Okay then speaking of which Margaret and the network is more extensive than people would realize. Absolutely John the network is it's it was actually set up initially in 2020 and it has gone from strength to strength. It started with 17 organizations. It's now at 21 and actually there's three that have just come in in the last week so that's going to increase to 24. It started as a result of the pandemic. It started at yeah at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic I suppose DLDC reached out to the different community and voluntary organizations who we knew were in the space of supporting people with food poverty food insecurity. They sort of came together organically and it's just grown from there really they have seen I suppose the members they're all community and voluntary organizations. They work off a board of volunteers that govern the organizations and most of the services are delivered by volunteers to the local community. None of the organizations are funded. They don't receive any core funding you know to support people that are experiencing food poverty so they really are in dire need. So it's about food and necessities for those who are most need. Absolutely and the 21 organizations work within their own local area. They're spanned from north and Ashone right down to southwest Donegal so they're all across the county and they do they work in the local areas supporting families who for one reason or another and there's many in the current climate that just find themselves you know temporarily and in need of that support. So the fact that there's 21 of them they're right in the heart of the local communities and they're at the cold face. They're at the cold face yeah and I suppose for those organizations the challenge is always getting enough food you know on a weekly basis but all of these organizations are more sort of focused on a more holistic approach. They really want to get in to understand and support families that find themselves in that poverty trap and find a way why there's need and what else that can be done to help them and help them to get out of a crisis situation. Exactly to look at you know the the challenges that have you know where they found themselves whatever that might be and the reasons are plentiful but to sort of give a more holistic approach but at the minute they're just very much challenged with meeting that immediate demand for food. The network more recently now has reached out like we've they've they're collaborating and working in partnership with FoodCloud to do a growth project where we're delivering fresh vegetables out to families in need which is fantastic and that's BWG or the Value Centre linked in there as well which is fantastic. We're also now we just this morning they were meeting what's launch care in the HSE and Dunningall County Council to try and sort of encourage all organizations to work together you know to provide a county winds response to food and security across the county and of course the call from John to offer the proceeds from from this initiative to those organizations at this time of the year is just phenomenal you know they're absolutely over the moon to I suppose first of all for another organization or voluntary organization to recognize the struggles that they have and you know and to proactively support them so yeah. Well when you have whatever comes of this when you've got to spread it out 21 ways just realize one the need that's out there in the communities and and two how vital a funding is because of this to be you know spread out around the whole of the county. Yeah and I mean every organization is doing what they can in their own local area and ordinarily we would try and you know sort of support campaigns and the roll up to Christmas but I mean this one is you know it's massive it's fantastic. And it's a great idea John and you know and it's already been well supported over a hundred businesses supporting it and you were chatting there about mostly vouchers but there's some physical items as well. Yeah there is we've got some interesting we have a carless drill from Watson's I actually have one of them it's brilliant Charles Kelly here in town has given us a table and chairs very nice just the right size for for houses TV. There's a TV there is indeed there's there's hampers so there's plenty there's about eight or ten items which is which is good you know it's a bit different. So this is live now so people can't go in from now from from this point forward for the next two weeks because we're going to we're going to do a sort of a wrap up in two weeks time as well and just remind people that the deadline isn't is on that day but in the meantime people can go on now to this website. Yes an important thing is that when you go on if you want to bid you have to register as a bidder and it's really important that people go in and put in their email and their phone number because we want to be able to contact them afterwards with the good news that they've got the item. But this isn't to contact people to send out regular emails or anything it's not that's not the reason that people need to put in the contact details it's that if you are the highest bidder then obviously Lions Club need to be able to contact you. Yeah we'll contact them we won't send out a link we'll actually physically ring people just to do that. And then it'll all happen very quickly if you if you secure one of these vouchers or items you get it within a week. You get it in less than a week we hope to get it out in maybe we're closing on the 7th we should have the vouchers out by the 11th. Okay and remind us once again where's the easiest way to get on to the website. The easiest way is Donegal food response network. Yes. And just click on the link. And I just have a couple of things if you don't mind. I just want to acknowledge our sponsors so cavernous super value are paying for all of our fees credit card fees the website fees so cavernous super value. That means all the money from the auction is absolutely going. Yeah so they're covering which is brilliant and also on the website for the auction you'll see contributors there are people who actually said no I'm just going to give you money so we've had a fantastic response to that we've got about 3000 cash so people can actually donate as well as you want to do. All right but it's it's the fun of it it's the fun of maybe getting a bargain is the thrill of it. Absolutely. I think that's going to be the the attraction here given that there's so many vouchers for all sorts of different things because I'm looking at let's say there's a beauty treatments there's restaurants obviously there's even dental services so you have tax consultancy there you go if one likes it you'll find you'll find something to suit regardless on the website. And one last thing also the line slope for the last 25 years have stood outside Don Stores and Lerrickeni to do food for the likes of Cara House and the Women's Refuge so that is on on the 1st and 2nd of December here in Don Stores and Lerrickeni both Don's so just to give that a plug because we'd be doing that for 25 years what we're doing now with this auction is kind of an evolution of that. Yes. But it's taken to the next level. It's it's the physical act of given you know given over. Well it's a great idea just been outside the doors of the supermarket because people see you going in and they want to get a few items and it's brilliant down they pop them into the bathroom. Absolutely yeah yeah it's okay well remind us closer to the same we'll give that a mention as well but in the meantime that is live now if you want to go on to the website go to Donegal Food Response and you see the whole list there of whatever and if you want to put in a bid for one of them then absolutely. Absolutely great. Great. Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you John. Ben Sockensohn