A Kildare couple have united their community to help those who are alone or in need at Christmas time.
Thanks to their generous idea, a community cafe is set to team up with a local church this Christmas to provide dinner and festive cheer for those who would otherwise be alone in the community.
Matt and Clare Black of the Halo Cafe in Celbridge will be cooking up plenty of delicious food and will be serving it in the Bridge Church located close by.
And already most of the 60 places have been snapped up, with generous donations from the local community ensuring that they can serve up a storm on the day.
The idea came about thanks to local couple Matt and Ellie Ryals who were inspired by a similar idea they saw in the UK.
Matt, who is originally from Tennessee in the US, told Dublin Live that once they shared the idea that donations of food and money to buy meat came flying in.
He said: "Lots of people have gotten in touch to donate - at the moment we have 49 people attending.
"We looked around to see if anything else like this was being done locally and when we realised there wasn't, we decided to give it a go.
"The pastor in the church was happy to let us use the facility, and then Matt Black contacted us to say they wanted to cook the food. And now the staff at the cafe have even offered to serve it on the day."
And donations from across the Celbridge community quickly came in when word spread - and will not only help to provide the food, but local families in need.
Matt continued: "We needed about €200, and we ended up with €1,300. We've also used it to provide gifts for a single mam and for another family, we're going to bring them for dinner and then bring the kids to the cinema. They've never been before.
"Anything left over, we'll donate to St Vincent de Paul."
