TRENDING

Child stylists take over Twitter to raise funds for LauraLynn children’s hospice

27 Feb 2015

Photo via Zagorodnaya/Shutterstock

Broadcaster Ray D’Arcy officially launched the #DressedByAChild campaign earlier this month and, since then, photos of badly and madly dressed adults have been doing the rounds on Twitter.

The #DressedByAChild campaign aims to raise funds for Ireland’s only children’s hospice by encouraging people to participate and donate, much like previous charitable trends like the Ice Bucket Challenge did for motor neurone disease, and No Make-up Selfies did for breast cancer care and research.

Donations are powered by Likecharity, with a minimum of €3.26 from every €4 text going directly to LauraLynn. In March last year, Likecharity totted up €1.5m raised for breast cancer charities through the selfie campaign followed by a further €1m last summer for the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association courtesy of a many a freezing patron.

The #DressedByAChild challenge, however, asks grown-ups to tweet pictures of their outfits as selected by kids, resulting in some garish get-ups.

D’Arcy’s daughter Kate was given a week in control of her usually dapper dad’s wardrobe, and other Irish TV and radio personalities such as Lucy Kennedy and Ryan Tubridy have followed suit.

#DressedByAChild

#DressedByAChild

#DressedByAChild

#DressedByAChild

#DressedByAChild

#DressedByAChild

#DressedByAChild

#DressedByAChild

From top: Ray D’Arcy, Ryan Tubridy, Lucy Kennedy, Neven Maguire, Amanda Kenny, John Glynn and Gill Waters take part in the #DressedByAChild campaign for LauraLynn. Photos courtesy of MKC Communications

“It’s wonderful to think that children can be involved in raising money for children who are less fortunate than themselves,” said D’Arcy.

According to LauraLynn, there are over 3,800 children living in Ireland with life-limiting conditions and 350 of these children pass away each year, most within their first year of life.

“It is surprise initiatives such as this #DressedByAChild campaign that enable us to keep our hospice doors open. With no direct Government funding for our hospice services, we need to raise €2.9m annually to continue our services,” said head of marketing Jane Flynn.

Donations to LauraLynn can be made by texting ‘LauraLynn’ to 50300. Texts cost €4 (plus VAT on some networks).

Child stylists photo by Zagorodnaya via Shutterstock

Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com