Rory McIlroy donation ‘extraordinary’ says Jack and Jill Foundation CEO
The Jack and Jill Foundation was one of the beneficiaries of McIlroy’s Rory Foundation, the charitable trust that hosted last weekend’s Irish Open in Kildare.
Furthermore, Mr McIlroy has announced he will donate his €666,000 Irish Open winner’s prize to the Jack and Jill Foundation, as well as to Barretstown and the LauraLynn Children’s Hospice.
CEO of the Jack and Jill Foundation Jonathan Irwin yesterday said that McIlroy’s generosity will mean an extra 70 hours of nursing per child under the care of the charity.
“The amount of money we are going to get is going to allow us to provide an extra 20,000 hours of nursing to our 300 children across the country. It’s massive,” Mr Irwin told Today with Sean O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio 1.
“We’re 19 years old now and we have never, ever received anything like this, or this amount in all those years. It’s quite extraordinary,” he said. Mr Irwin also thanked the public for their donations to the charity over the past 19 years.
“The people have raised more than €60m for my children. In the same time I have raised less than €6m from the HSE.”
Sharon Morrow, CEO of the LauraLynn Children’s Hospice, has also expressed the charity’s gratitude for McIlroy’s work.
“I want to thank Rory McIlroy, and his team at the Foundation, for the wonderful work they are doing for really worthy causes, and for selecting us along with two other great children’s charities. It is a major endorsement of all the work of everyone at LauraLynn,” she said.
Dee Ahern, CEO of Barretstown, said the money received from the Irish Open will enable the charity “to provide our life-changing programmes to more than 5,000 children and family members affected by serious illness in 2016”.
