Belvedere College - Charitable Activities

Charitable Activities

The school has a wide range of charitable activities for its students. For example, some students travel with the annual Dublin Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes, France to assist the elderly and the disabled; others take part in an exchange programme with students of Saint Xavier's Collegiate School in Calcutta, India, where they assist in homes for orphans and street-children. Belvedere's St. Vincent de Paul Society is one of the largest of any secondary school in Ireland, organising activities such as old-folks events and flat decoration in inner city Dublin. Since 1981, certain students also undertake a charity walk from Dublin to Galway every summer in order to raise funds for Irish Guide Dogs For The Blind and The Temple Street Children's Hospital (which is located near the school). In the past, the "block-pull", as it is known, has raised over €70,000 in a single event.

An annual charitable fundraising event held by the College is the "Belvedere Sleep-Out", which takes place from December 22 to 24th each year. Students "go homeless" on Dublin's O'Connell Street for 3 days and 2 nights. The Sleep-Out is run primarily by students from the College, with the assistance of a number of teachers, to raise funds for Focus Ireland, The Home Again Society, and Father Peter McVerry's Society for homeless boys. The students fast for 24 hours during the Sleep-Out. The culmination is Christmas Eve midnight mass in the college chapel. In the past, the college has managed to raise over €137,000 in a single Christmas period for the charities.

Belvedere College has an active alumni association - the Belvedere College Past Pupils' Union, the aim of which is to encourage social interchange among Belvederians and to promote the aims of the Society to which the College belongs. The Union has a number of sub-committees including the Belvedere Youth Club, which provides social, recreational and educational facilities for youth in the Dublin city centre area, and Belvedere Social Services, which provides housing for young vulnerable homeless boys who would otherwise be at grave risk, and facilitates them with opportunities for training and employment. In 2010-11, Belvedere College Union established Belvedere alumni networks in the US and the UK to support past pupils abroad and to assist with fundraising projects for the college including the college's social integrattion scheme (S.I.S.)