Westmeath man who raised €1.2 million for charities honoured by Concern Worldwide
Renowned Mullingar charity worker Brian Fagan – who has raised over €1.2 million for charities – has received a special award for his “outstanding” work from aid agency Concern Worldwide.
The local businessman, who runs Brian’s Treasure Chest charity shop on Castle Street, began fundraising for Concern in 1999 during the Kosovo War when he also travelled to Albania with 50 containers of clothes donated from all over the country to help with the refugee crisis.
He raised over €170,000 for Concern alone since then – including €2,030 at a recent church gate collection - and was given an Outstanding Commitment Award for his incredible efforts at the recent 2018 Concern Volunteer Awards held in Dublin.
The 57-year-old father of two, who has travelled to over 120 countries, was highly praised at the event by Concern’s Chief Executive Dominic MacSorley.
“As well as managing the annual Concern collections in Mullingar and Athlone each summer and Christmas, he runs occasional fundraising events at shopping centres and during times of major emergency appeals,” said Mr MacSorley.
“He takes the job very seriously and has a very large pool of volunteer collectors.”
Brian said he wasn’t expecting the award and that “It was a great honour” for him and the volunteers who raise the funds.
He said that he has witnessed extreme poverty in many countries and that millions of people still need aid as conflicts continue and the effects of climate change worsen.
“I have worked in programmes that were feeding a quarter of a million people, but can see today that things are getting worse. The needs are greater now than they ever were,” he said.
This was the latest in a number of awards that Brian has received for his charitable work – which included gongs from his local Westmeath County Council and Chamber of Commerce.
Concern’s Volunteer Awards was created five years ago to celebrate the vital contribution made by the aid agency’s volunteers in Ireland – which helps fund the organisation’s overseas work that last year alone saw 27 million of the world’s poorest peopled reached in 27 countries.