This year you made connections with new people. In the first half of the year you connected with 1226 pupils at Chibwata Primary School, Dowa, Central Malawi, who eat in a school kitchen you paid Mary’s Meals to build. This is it:
Two months ago you connected with the 1292 pupils at Kholoni Primary School, Mchinji, Central Malawi, who also eat at a school kitchen you paid Mary’s Meals to build. Here it is:
There is now around 4000 kids attending schools in Malawi with kitchens you paid for. Not only are they being fed, they are being educated in greater numbers than ever – enrolment is up around 30% after the kitchens go up. This gives them better life chances. Some will graduate from subsistence living to a life with opportunities.
Villages with better education facilities become more productive and wealthier, as do districts and countries. Across Mary’s Meals 1m plus daily meals, this will provide a significant lift to the drive away from absolute poverty for decades to come.
These are big numbers but the detail is always more revealing. Magners offer us a pair of premium seat tickets for most home games. When we run these competitions dozens of you click to donate to Mary’s Meals, putting food in the larders of school kitchens.
Then there are the regular donations to the Celtic FC Foundation. Celtic work with those who have fallen through the cracks in the UK, Ireland and the developing world. They feed the homeless in Glasgow, make facilities available to kids with autism, and generally go around like a green and white caped crusader. You have always responded to the call.
I get to see lots of this in action, there are small causes too numerous to mention, helped more often than not from people who don’t want you to know what they’ve done. There have been 100 stories in 2015 which will never be written, but will live as private anecdotes, or as kitchens in Africa, or winter clothing for refugees in Serbia. Celtic fans have been doing this for 128 years, each act is a commemoration of what started it all back in 1887.
I’ve met hundreds of CQN’ers but yet to meet one I didn’t like. Even the raging lunatics online (you know who you are!) are actually very decent people when you get them away from the keyboard. On behalf of the thousands you’ve helped this year, thank you very much. I’m sure Brother Walfrid would be very proud of you.
Have a great Christmas, you deserve it.
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Mike, All the best to you and yours for a happy, peaceful Christmas.
See you up the rub-a-dub for the Hearts game?
HH
A a grand idea!
A happy & healthy Christmas to all on CQN.
Merry Christmas All
HH
Kitalba-10.56 am
Lovely story,thanks for that.
Merry Christmas.
ElDiegoBhoy- I hope you and yours have a great day HH
Merry Christmas to all on CQN
Very Merry Christmas to everyone on CQN. H.H.
Wits
Nollaig Shona to you and yer butler
Bada Bing
Cheers bud. Opened my present from older daughter’s guy……A Tache Tamers Toolbox!!!!!!!!!!
Happy and Holy Christmas to all at CQN, hope you all have a Great day, with friends and Family.
Awerabest PJ
Haven’t posted in a long time but as its Christmas…best wishes to all of us who dream in green and white, special thanks to Paul 67 for the best Celtic site on this internet thing and auldheid,,canamalar etc keep the pressure on with resolution 12, it is greatly appreciated.,
I was in the airport on Saturday night and said to wee jay”bad result today wee man” and his reply said it all”I know but u gotta love Celtic”, some bhoy jay!
Popped back on to wish everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas, the article above is the best one of the year and hopefully will make us all take some time out for reflection.
Lhad back from London, mulled cider on the go, ham cooking in over, all in all not a bad moment to reflect.
I will continue to lurk and may post when ever I feel the urge , all the best and keep up the good work.
Hail!Hail!
kitalba
great post for christmas morning.
merry christmas to all.
Paul67
merry Christmas to you and yours
aye and all you roasters anaw :))))).
Kitalba 10.56
thank you for sharing.
2wks ago the wee man was going into school at 9am and i noticed a worried looking dad with his son standingalone as if afraid to let the boy go,turns out (through language diffs and google translate) they w
ere syrians and it was the 6yr olds 1st day and the da was more worriedthan the boy as he looked about him.
come 3pm he was greeted by a roaster who gave him a Celtic scarf a handshake and a welcome.. he cried
Masood now beams wae pride as he meets and mlngles wae the other parents proudly wearing his simple scarf.
till later all have a great day and may only good things come your way.
he now smiles broadly as
Lefty
Were you that roaster:o)
HH
I haven’t posted for a few months but logged on to wish all CQNers a fantastic Christmas and all the very best for 2016.
Paul67 – special thanks to you for all of the hard work you put into this blog day after day. Keep up the excellent work.
All the best to Ronny and the Bhoys for the second half of the season. Deliver the treble Bhoys.
HH
Before i go Merry Christmas to Ronny and the Bhoys.
Very Happy Christmas to Kojo if he’s lurking.
Merry Christmas to you Leftclicktic fae the Green Green Valley
A very Happy and Holy Christmas to all on CQN – the happy clappers, the mineshafters, the flouncers, the negatims, the kid-on tims, the roasters and the cheese toasters. Have a great day. Just need to find somewhere in Bishop Auckland to watch the game on Sunday.
To all on cqn
A very merry Christmas
Hail hail
Merry Christmas Paul 67 & also to everyone on this blessed site , I hope you all have a great day ,
Merry Christmas from an unseasonably warm Connecticut where it’s a balmy 17 degrees.
Buddy Elf just got hit with a taxi
#bestxmasmovie
What a laugh……was waiting to go out this morning and tweeted the following, just as a wee joke ….it has gone viral ….bhuns fuming, Celts laughing
JINGLE BELLS, SEVCO SMELLS, SALLY WALKED AWAY…….
OH WHAT FUN IT WILL BE, ON SEVCO ADMIN DAY………..
Merry Christmas everyone from Cote du Bridge .
Chuffed to bits with my prezzies .
Amongst others , a new Celtic scarf , a Lisbon lions mug and the Celtic collection 4 DVD box .
Doesn’t get any better .
My boys know me well .
A very merry Christmas from a balmy Toronto, instead of shoveling snow people are golfing:)
TAL&MIT I hope to see yeez on Sunday.
slainte
tony
Merry Christmas to all my fellow Celtic fans. Leftclick at 2.20 today that is what makes Celtic fans different from the rest and very proud to be a Tim.
Nice to see Gordon64 and ACGR and weefra and others back on site enjoy their contributions over the years. HH
Papajoe55 Merry Christmas pal. HH
THE walk towards Celtic Park was made with difficulty.
Derek Bootland, a Rangers fan jailed for sectarian offences, was coming to the home of a team he hated. He was looking for help. Six months on, the 22-year-old from Drumchapel, Glasgow, credits the Celtic FC Foundation for helping to change his life. The one-time prisoner and self-confessed bigot now prepares to look forward to a Christmas that includes a new home, visits from his three children and a job that came after he enrolled in a Celtic FC Foundation project.
Mr Bootland recalls: “A few days before I was released from prison I was talking to a mentor and he asked me: ‘Do you want to go to Celtic Park for a course?’ I thought it was some kind of joke but then I thought why not?’
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The Rangers fan was then selected for the Cashback Gateway to Employment scheme. Allan Campbell, employability co-ordinator at Celtic FC Foundation, said this initiative sought to put “challenging young people” back to work. Celtic FC Foundation is running nine such schemes over three years for 16-25-year-olds. The foundation’s priority is to help those who face daily difficulties within key priority areas; health, equality, learning and poverty.
“They have to do it themselves,” says Mr Campbell, “but over the 10 weeks they will learn to update CVs, interview techniques and be given talks by employers.”
Mr Bootland has returned to Celtic Park to talk to others embarking on the course and says: “When I left prison I had nothing to look forward to. This time last year I was a bigot. But I was also really just a wee boy. But I have changed, changed the way I think.”
The first steps were the most difficult. “When I was walking up to Celtic for the first time I was disgusted with myself. I was thinking about what would happen if all the boys knew I was coming to Celtic Park,” he said. “Everybody knows now and I am proud of what I have done.”
His first reactions to the course were stunning. The initiative is held within Celtic Park and Mr Bootland said: “I walked in and saw all the Celtic stuff and my head was spinning but I do not even notice it any more. I have come a long way, I think. It is good to get back into work and it is all through this. I would not have got anywhere without the foundation.”
Mr Bootland readily admits he sang sectarian songs and made anti-Catholic remarks but sits calmly within Celtic Park explaining how life has changed and how he seeks to help others who want to dedicate themselves to the Cashback Gateway to Employment scheme.
“I cannot really explain how much I have changed. I have learned not to hate people because they do not have the same background or same views as myself. That is just daft and I know that. There is something different deep inside me,” he added.
He believes his imprisonment was the jolt he needed. “Coming here,” he says of Celtic Park, “was a bonus. There was a lot of things that came together. I think I was beginning to mature a bit too. It was time for me to grow up.”
Mr Bootland was living in a hostel when he started the course but now has his own home. “The job has helped with that and the money is handy with Christmas coming up,” he says. His children are aged five, two and one. “I sometimes sit with them in the house and say: ‘I have everything I ever wanted’.’’
He is now embarking on attaining a licence to drive a digger. “That would give me a better chance of employment on construction sites,” he says. His confidence has been restored. “I now come back to Celtic Park to tell the guys on courses that they can do it if they commit to it,” he says.
He has even spoken before a Lisbon Lion. Bertie Auld, a strong supporter of the foundation’s work, gave the certificates to those who had passed the course and Mr Bootland says: “I had no problem standing with Bertie and thanking Celtic Foundation for everything they had done for me.”
But when exactly did he notice that he had changed? He says: “Sometimes we have to walk pitchside at the stadium. I would never even look up. And then I remember one of the guys saying: ‘The stadium is nice, isn’t it. And I looked up and said: “You know, it is quite nice’.
“I had never said anything good about Celtic in my life before.”
It was just a remark between workmates. It stands, though, as a signpost to a better life for a fan who took the biggest step.
From the Herald
Merry Christmas to all my fellow Celtic supporters . HH
ACGR, great tae see you posting again ……… : ). HH. Tae the AGPL.
Merry Christmas to all my brothers and sisters, enjoy and be well and truly merry!!!!!
P67.
All at CQN.
Merry Christmas.
Hope 2016 is a great one.
Hail Hail and let the people sing…..
Have yourselves a merry little Christmas. The Celtic Foundation have proved themselves again. Now for six wins in a row,and the same for the Hibees.
Paul67
Thank you once again for the opportunity.
Keep on with your fine efforts through to next year.
A Happy Christmas to you and yours Paul.
And to all others on here.
And God bless all those who have left us,
you live on with us and through us.
Bertie Auld once said that he had signed three times for Celtic, and if they had come for him again, he would have signed for a fourth time.
Hail. Hail.
Happy Christmas from warsaw where its been bright and sunny with a temp of 12C ….. was expecting sub zero and snow and very pleasantly surprised.
BTW one major bonus about being in Poland for Christmas and new year … not a hun or zombie in sight .