Marie Keating Foundation Announced as one of the GAA Charity Partners for 2019

Croke Park, Dublin, 15^th April 2019: The Marie Keating Foundation has been named as one of the GAA’s 2019 charity partners. The cancer awareness and support Foundation is one of five charities from the around the country selected by the Association to be one of their official charities for the coming season.

The other charities picked were; Western Alzheimers, Down Syndrome Ireland, Enable Ireland and Focus Ireland.

Each of the designated charities will receive a €20,000 donation from the GAA as part of this ongoing initiative that stretches back to 2008. So far, the GAA has raised €1.2 million in official charity donations since this time.

In addition to the donation, the staff of Croke Park also play a big role in fundraising for the chosen charities. The proceeds, raised from the annual staff charity cycle from Croke Park to Carrick-on-Shannon on April 26^th, will be split amongst the partners.

Liz Yeates CEO of the Marie Keating Foundation says “We are so thrilled to have been chosen this year to be one of the GAA’s charity partners. The GAA is an organisation we admire hugely and their focus on grassroots level, mirrors our work in the community promoting cancer awareness and prevention through our nursing teams and our mobile units. The donation of €20,000 will be used to promote and run a skin cancer awareness campaign this summer urging the GAA community at all levels, both players and spectators, to take the necessary steps to reduce their risk and be #SunSmart. Every year in Ireland, over 1,000 new cases of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, are diagnosed. Just one bad sun burn before you are 18 can increase your chances of skin cancer by half so we are delighted to use this new partnership with the GAA to promote this life saving message of prevention to as many people as possible over the summer months.”