FDC Charity Fund: Twomey Family Remorial
As written by Elber Twomey – Staff member of FDC Group
Twomey Family Remorial started in June 2014 as a result of an idea by Con’s friends.
We were an extremely happy family treating ourselves to a ten-day holiday in Devon. We chose the Devon, the sunny southwest for our holiday as personally I was afraid to fly as I was five months pregnant with our beautiful little lady. Taking our car also gave us the luxury of bringing lots of baba Oisin’s toys etc., so we literally could have a home away from home. We had 6 fabulously carefree days together. Regretfully on day seven at 2:47 PM tragedy struck us and our wonderful life ended.
We were involved in a horrific road traffic collision with a suicidal driver, Marek R.I.P. which claimed the lives of our beautiful little 16-month-old baba Oisin and his beautiful unborn sister. If that wasn’t tragic enough it also claimed the life of my darling husband Con on May 3rd 2013.
The aim of Twomey Family Remorial was that Con, Baba Oisín and Little Lady would never be forgotten, that we would promote positive mental health and how precious life is along with promoting road safety.
Pictured left to right: Aine Nolan, Area Manager Kanturk and Elber Twomey
“The aim of the Twomey Family Remorial was that Con, Baby Oisín and Little Lady would never be forgotten, that we would promote positive mental health and how precious life is along with promoting road safety.”
What began as a ‘one-off’ spiralled into an annual event owing to the wonderful support. We had 8 years where we fundraised for powerful charities, and during Covid we held 2 virtual Twomey Family Remorials where we urged people to walk, run and cycle 5km, 50km and 110km within government distance restrictions and over the period of 7 days. We did not fundraise during these virtual events, instead we encouraged people to walk, run, cycle or join in our virtual quiz. We had a huge response both years, having wonderful people from across 19 counties of Ireland and 7 countries join in, which was powerful.
Twomey Family Remorial has raised over €192,000 since we began in 2014, Amazing!! We have supported 17 charities over the years. In addition to this, we have given out over 3,000 hi visibility jackets to our wonderful participants and have appointed approximately 800 seatbelt sheriffs from our ‘Connie Twomey Hurling Cup’ blitzes. We are hoping that this will help keep our roads in Duhallow safer and more pedestrian friendly.
Twomey Family Remorial 2023 supported Kanturk/Millstreet branch of Irish Red Cross, St. Josephs Foundation in Charleville, The Crann Centre in Cork, Teac Tom Kilkenny and Cork Samaritans, all powerful charities. Owing to FDC’s extremely generous donation of 1,000 Euro, each of these wonderful charities will get an additional €200. Each of them have already received €2,990 from our June ’23 Twomey Family Remorial weekend. No doubt this additional money will be a fantastic New Year surprise and will undoubtedly help many lives.
Huge thanks to all at FDC for your wonderful generosity toward our Twomey Family Remorial. #Remembering #LifeIsPrecious
To donate to the charity, please visit https://www.twomeyfamilyremorial.com/donate/.