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Truvo Gets Mugged Children’s Art Competition

Supporting Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin.

 

The Truvo Gets Mugged Children’s Art Competition, hosted by multimedia search and advertising company Truvo Ireland, was conceived to support our 2009 charity partner, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin and discover some original and inspiring artwork for our workplace.

 

This unique art competition was devised to help us achieve two aims…

 

1.      We decided to introduce ceramic mugs into our workplace to replace disposable mugs to be more environmentally friendly and wanted to find some inspirational artwork to adorn them.  

 

2.      We wanted to inspire the young patients at the hospital to use their innate creativity, exercise their vibrant imaginations and help them realise their wonderful potential by giving them the chance to be part of a professional art exhibition. Children receiving treatment for any kind of illness/condition in hospital can undergo a lot of stress and it’s not easy for families who have to uproot their lives to be with their kids at these difficult times so we wanted to do something that would be engaging, fun and stress-free for these wonderfully brave children.

 

Early on we found two very generous and supportive partners to help us with our exciting endeavour: Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and The Art and Hobby Shop. Both organisations, when they heard about our idea immediately, jumped on board and wanted to help. Dublin City Gallery helped us form a judging panel for the competition, held art classes for the children and facilitated us in organising a professional artist and artist’s assistant to visit every ward on the hospital over two days and give workshops to all the children. We wanted the children to be able to take part in this competition regardless of their illness so brought the art workshops to them. When the competition closed the Gallery staged a magnificent exhibition of the finalists’ artwork. The Art and Hobby Shop stunned all of us by donating enough free art materials and supplies to not only cover the whole hospital for the length of the competition but to last an entire year!  

 

With all this amazing talent and support the only difficult part was the judging! A panel of judges consisting of two professional artists, the Education Curator of the gallery, two wonderful play therapists from the hospital and a representative from Truvo came together in Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane for the difficult task of selecting 16 finalists from the amazing body of work entered in the competition. One winner was selected from each of the four age categories, each of these winners to be honoured by having their artwork used to create the new range of exclusive mugs. The overall winners, one in the 0-4 age category, one in the 5-8 years age category, one in the 9-12 years category and one in the 13+ category, were revealed at the gala launch of the exhibition of the artwork in Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.

 

The exhibition launch was an exciting day for every child and their family! The opportunity for a child to have their work exhibited in such a prestigious gallery doesn’t come around that often and these children were determined to enjoy their moment of glory. All 16 finalists received certificates and prizes and the four overall winners were announced by our guest of honour; tv star and Fair City actor MacLean Burke.

 

Gorgeous prizes supplied by The Art and Hobby Shop ensured the children would keep developing their talents in the future and with the artworks professionally framed and displayed their families got to see just where these talented youngsters could go in the future.

 

Now, months later and Truvo have produced a stunning selection of mugs using the four winning artworks. Over 200 Truvo employees now have a personalised mug with their name on it and we no longer use environmentally wasteful disposable cups.

 

To date Truvo Ireland have raised over €23,000 for the charity and continue to raise more.

 

To view a selection of images from the launch of the Truvo Gets Mugged Exhibition, click HERE.

 

To view the Truvo Gets Mugged Children’s Art Competition finalists’ artworks, click HERE.

 

For more information about this initiative please contact Emma Walsh on 01 618 8100 or email emma.walsh@truvo.ie or browse the links below.

 

A very big thank you to:

Richeal Keogh, The Art and Hobby Shop

Katy Fitzpatrick, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane

All the wonderful staff of Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.

Kylie Flynn, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin

Caroline Chawke, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin

Conall MacRiocaird, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin

Tom Hickey, The Children’s Medical and Research Foundation

Johann Fox, The Children’s Medical and Research Foundation

The Truvo Charity Committee:

Shane Burke

Claire Green

Sarah Fitzgerald

Kristin Gilchrist

Lorraine Grogan

Ruth Halligan

Ciara Kenny

Pamela Pounch

 

The wonderful employees and Executive Team of Truvo Ireland. 

 

Truvo are immensely grateful for the continuous generosity and support of the following: