‘If you can make memories out of €50,000 wouldn’t that be better than anything?’

Coláiste Cholmcille Ballyshannon have, since September, been working hard to collect stamps, gather votes, promote the project, submit a plea and generally rally to win the  Lidl plus rewards/ LGFA competition - and it worked!

After all the hard work, they won the top prize of €50,000 for the development of sports and Ladies' Gaelic Football in the LGFA Stamp Card Competition.

The Ballyshannon school came out on top in the final round of the competition and are recipient of the prize, as decided by public vote. 

Coláiste Cholmcille beat St Mary's Mallow, Co Cork; Presentation De La Salle, Co Carlow and Claregalway College, Co Galway, who all receive €10,000 each.

“The great school community and the drive behind the campaign supported by past and present students and friends of Coláiste Cholmcille really pushed us forward,” Ann-Marie Coleman, teacher and ladies manager at Coláiste Cholmcille, told DonegalLive. 

“We reached out far and wide, contacting people all over Ireland, America and Australia. The students were also brilliant at creating TikToks and advertising our cause at local Lidl stores and asking people to vote, so the word spread far.”

In phase one of the competition, the schools had to collect stamps, Coláiste Cholmcille collected a huge 1,158 stamps which equalled 193 booklets. They topped Ulster for the most stamps collected and were delighted to receive three sets of jerseys for the Girls' Gaelic teams.

The schools then were required to submit a letter detailing why they deserved the finances. 

“I wrote a letter stating why the school deserved to win €50,000 and I sent it off,” Ann-Marie continued. “The letter described how since I started in the school six years ago we didn't have any jerseys and we were using the same ones as the boys and where we are now today, as the numbers have doubled since then.

“Then, the rest of it says what we planned to do with the money if we won in terms of developing the sport in the school.”

Coláiste Cholmcille's letter got them into the final four, leaving the school guaranteed at least the €10,000 prize. The school also released a promotional video with Lidl and they were in to win the top prize in the country on the public vote. 

Ann-Marie (32) who is a native of Bunninadden, Co Sligo, is a geography and English teacher at Coláiste Cholmcille. She is the manager of the three ladies' football teams at the school alongside colleague and maths teacher, John Kenny. Ann-Marie was the main driving force behind the school’s participation in the LGFA competition.

Following all their diligence, Coláiste Cholmcille now has an opportunity to greatly add to their sporting facilities. 

“The prize will go a long way in developing the sports more, getting new equipment and their gear, I will be organising tours, such as the Croke Park Experience, all of which could not be done otherwise,” Ann-Marie added. 

“Currently we do not have a full-size Gaelic pitch, and would need to invest in more balls, poles, and ladders, we would like to invest in things that the whole school community can avail of and another idea would be to get guest speakers maybe for nutrition talks and also the students could participate in courses such as the refereeing course

Overall, the money will be used to take the students on trips, kit them out with gear, improve the sporting facilities and bring in some educational features such as talks, things that would not have been otherwise possible.

“If you can make memories out of €50,000 wouldn’t that be better than anything?”

Coláiste Cholmcille would like to extend their thank you to Lidl for their contribution to Ladies Gaelic Football, the whole school community for all of the support and their local Lidl stores which are situated in Bundoran and Donegal Town.