If you have ever witnessed a child – whose life is being stolen away by a terrible illness then you’ll know what suffering and heartache is and recognise the absolute need to help us reach out to these families and extend a hand of love and friendship.

This is how the National Children of Courage Awards make a difference. Through the years of working with children who are suffering from life-threatening illness, chronic disease and disability, Share a Dream has been struck by one trait, which these children consistently share and this is Courage. And we realise that such courage in the face of such challenges must not go unrewarded and so we have established the National Children of Courage Awards.

For the past 10yrs Share a Dream has received thousands of nominations from all over Ireland. Every year we have the extremely difficult and heart-breaking task of choosing eight Children of Courage from all these exceptionally brave and courageous children who have been nominated.

At the “Dream Ball” every year each of these 8 courageous children are given a Share a Dream “National Child of Courage” award. As part of their prize they travel on a magical VIP trip along with their parents to experience some fun and happiness for the first time in a very long time.

If you know of a child with serious life threatening illness or serious disability who has shown extraordinary courage, then why not nominate them for a Share a dream “National Children of Courage Award”.

 These children suffer with life threatening illnesses and disabilities. Their lives are centred around hospitals, painful treatments, medication and illness. Here in Share A Dream, we want to give these children and their families a break from this very difficult and exhausting reality, even if it is just for one weekend!

With the amazing support of local Limerick businesses and individuals, a wonderful weekend jam packed with fun, laughter and smiles was enjoyed by everyone! Formula for Fun very generously provided their premises on Saturday morning, allowing all the children and their parents to run riot in the centre! There was also karate expert Pat Forde on hand to teach some moves, music and games with the centre staff plus delicious food and goody bags for all the kids! A huge thanks to Dan and Ed Heffernan, and all his team in Formula for Fun that these children were given the chance to be children again, to have fun, smile and forgetting about their illnesses and disabilities.

In the afternoon, it was swimming at the gorgeous Carlton Castletroy Park Hotel were for 2hours the kids and parents had the pool all to themselves.  After this it was more fun were activities included – Face Painting, Nail Art, Tattoos, Arts and Crafts, clay figure making and games all took up the afternoon.  That evening at beautiful summer cocktail reception was enjoyed by all the families and at 7pm a delicious 4 course meal was enjoyed by all.  Entertainment was provided by magician Wizard Woo,  Singer local girl Raquel Rocca and DJ Dara Fahy provided the Disco!

We want these families to have a well deserved break away from the hardship and sadness surrounding sick children. Our aim is to create smiles on these children’s faces and I think everyone will agree we certainly did this!

It is with the wonderful support and generosity of everyone that together we can create theses smiles. We do it for the children who cannot do it for themselves!