Jun 22, 2010

Following a fantastic response to the “Write Up my Street” competition in aid of Barnardos, Londis has now begun judging entries for this year’s “Write Up My Street” book.

With over 6,300 young people entering their stories from all over Ireland, the number of entrants doubled on last year. The theme of this year’s competition was “Community, The People, The Place and The Pride” and was launched in Dublin by Jedward last April who wrote a rap about growing up in Lucan.

Ruth Norton, Londis Marketing Manager said “We are thrilled with the response this year, 2009 was the first year we ran this competition and we were absolutely delighted to receive over 3000 entries, so to get more than double that this year is testament to how much the competition is growing, hopefully we will raise even more much needed funds for Banardos. The “Write Up My Street” book will be available in participating Londis stores in September and we are working hard to select the 30 winners from all the fabulous entries, I know it will be a tough choice given the standard of the stories I’ve seen so far. I would like to thank all the young people who entered, their stories prove Ireland still has a great sense of community and pride.”

Winning entries from each county in Ireland will be chosen by the judges for inclusion in a specially commissioned book to be sold in participating Londis stores across Ireland, with proceeds going to www.barnardos.ie children’s charity. In addition one overall primary school winner who is deemed to have the most entrants per student population will receive a €5,000 library voucher for their school! The best entry from each age category will receive a €250 book voucher.

The age categories are

a)       5 – 7 years;

b)       8 - 10 years;

c)       11-12 years;

d)       13 -18 years.

The proceeds of the book will help thousands of children to make the most of their education by attending Barnardos After School programmes in communities across the country.  

For further press information or to arrange an interview please contact Grace Cassidy in MC2 on 01 4980300 or gcassidy@mcsquared.ie