Charity plane push to come through Athlone

The Irish Air Corps will undertake a very innovative 40 hour charity non-stop marathon, starting out pushing a light aircraft from Baldonnel next Thursday to Galway on Saturday, May 18, and will pass through Moate and Athlone on Friday, May 17.
The 'Push for Donors’ is to raise awareness for organ donation and support for a national commemorative garden to organ donors. This garden, called Circle of Life, will be located in Quincentennial Park, Salthill, and is being developed by Strange Boat Donor Foundation, in partnership with Galway City Council.
In 2012 the Air Corps, which provides an international air ambulance service for the people of Ireland, completed 99 Air Ambulance missions, including national, international and transatlantic transfers of patients, of which 20 related directly to organ donation. Irish children requiring transplants are included in the UK’s donor pool and so rely on the speedy transport of the Air Corps when they receive that all important call to the UK for a transplant.
Capt. Brendan O’Dowd, who is organising the event in conjunction with the Strange Boat Donor Foundation, said: “We are delighted to be in a position to help promote organ donor awareness and to bring the public’s attention to this wonderful national commemorative garden project. I, myself, have been involved in several calls, some relating to organ donation where we have landed in the UK three hours after receiving the initial call requesting assistance.”
Members of the Irish Transplant Team, who do great work promoting organ donation awareness through their sporting achievements, and who are currently training for the World Transplant Games in South Africa later in the Summer, will join in for the first leg of the Air Corps Push at Baldonnel.
A significant feature of this event is that the aircraft will carry a heritage-associated stone which will represent Dublin organ donors and which will be handed over in Salthill by the Air Corps, for inclusion in the planned garden development. Procurement of the stone was facilitated by the Office of Public Works, and heritage-associated stones from the other counties are also being sourced. These stones will represent donors from the individual counties, and anyone or group wishing to have an association with a particular county stone is invited to contact Strange Boat Donor Foundation.
The 'Push for Donors’ will leave Baldonnel on Thursday at 8pm, travelling through Leixlip, Maynooth, Kilcock, Enfield and Clonard before reaching Kinnegad at about 7am on Friday morning. It will then continue through Westmeath with plans to reach Moate at about 4pm and onto Athlone for 5.30pm. From Athlone the push will continue through Kielty, Cornafulla, Doohan, Ballydangan to Ballinasloe, arriving there at about 1am on Saturday morning. They will travel overnight from Ballinasloe, expecting to arrive in Loughrea at 7am before continuing on through county Galway, arriving into Galway city at approximately 2.30pm on Saturday and finally to Quincentennial Park, Salthill, at about 3pm.