Dundalk Chamber of Commerce School Mentoring Initiative

Following on from the success of last year’s School Mentoring Initiative, Dundalk Chamber of Commerce once again engaged with local secondary schools whereby volunteers from across the Chamber member organisations gave their time and expertise to meet with transition year students.

Led by Brendan Gallagher, Chamber of Commerce Council Member and Director of TDS Operations for Prometric, a call was put out to the Chamber membership seeking volunteers to lend their expertise and knowledge to provide benefit to the local school community. The response from the business community was extremely positive with many business leaders eager to give of their time to benefit the schools and their pupils.

A match making process ensued whereby business volunteers were matched to schools based on the topics the schools were interested in and the particular areas of expertise of the volunteers. From that point the visits by business volunteers to the various schools took place. Based on the very positive feedback from the schools and their pupils they certainly found it to be a very worthwhile and beneficial experience. The year was closed out with several business volunteers conducting TY mock interviews alongside parents in Dundalk Grammar School.

Special thanks go to the following businesses and volunteers for giving of their time and expertise: Brendan Gallagher & Eamonn Kelly (Prometric); Paddy Malone (Malone & Co. Accountant); Stewart Agnew & Majella Toner Downey (Dundalk Credit Union); Laura Morgan Walsh, Barry Coffey, Sam Longhi & James Abel (PayPal); Laura McKinnon (Anord); Anthony Woods (Keystone Business School); Orla Hayes (Carrickdale Hotel); Ciara Byrne (RecruitmentPlus); Orla McDonnell (Trahere Coaching); Charlotte O’Connell (Graebel);Sarah Daly (Creative Spark); Breean Weldrick (Osborne Recruitment); Stephen Hogg (Bellurgan Precision); John Nealon (M1 Document Solutions); Andris Macs(Gecko Governance); Pat McCormick (DKIT); David Minto (CX+ Sport); Thomas McDonagh (FDW).

A number of other Chamber businesses and volunteers also supported the Bank of Ireland Bond Initiative event which took place during the school year.

Schools who participated in and benefited from the Chamber Schools initiative this year included: St. Vincent’s, The Marist, Dundalk Grammar School, O’Fiaich College, Coláiste Rís & De Le Salle.




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