Calling American students - Irish charity seeks summer volunteers

Barretstown, an Irish charity that helps children suffering from a serious illness, is looking for US recruits this summer. 

Barretstown, a camp founded by actor Paul Newman, offers specialized camps in Ireland for children and their families suffering from life-altering illnesses. 

Newman's thinking was that serious illness shouldn't stop kids from having the chance to be children and so he founded the camp in 1994. 

The inaugural year saw 124 children attend the camp. It has since served more than 50,000 children in the past 25 years. 

To manage this huge volume of attendees, organizers are always looking for volunteers and interns to help them run the camps and, in the past few years, they have looked across the Atlantic to the United States. 

The charity is looking to hiring college students for its summer program this year which runs from May through August.

Positions available include activity leader, camp photography, and cara leader - to look after the daytime needs of children and their families. 

Successful applicants will be housed by the camp at Barretstown in County Kildare. 

Programs last less than 90 days, so no visa is required to get involved. 

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Barretstown Castle

Read more: Paul Newman fan bequests $9 million to Barretstown Camp for children with serious illnesses and their families

Dee Ahearn, Barretstown's CEO, will take part in the St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City to spread the word about all the good work that the charity does. 

She will be joined by roughly 30 campers who will march to raise awareness for the project in America. 

The camp is situated in a 12th-century castle that appealed to Newman when he visited Ireland in the 1990s. 

The actor, famed for his role as Butch Cassidy, thought it would be the perfect place to set up the Irish branch of his charity,  Newman's Serious Fun Children’s Network.

The charity operates in Ireland, the USA, other parts of Europe, Japan and Israel. 

The idea is that children go home with increased confidence, self-esteem and more importantly the reassurance that happiness is not just for healthy children.

For more information, send an email to [email protected] or visit the website.

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