Courtney Malley, BethAnn Bailey, Rosaleen McGill and Anne McNiff—all residents of our cool little Irish community, BallyPhilly—are getting set to take a long walk with lots of their closest BallyPhilly friends and neighbors.
You can help make their journey a little easier. Come this October, they’ll set off on a three-day, 60-mile walk to raise money for breast cancer research. But before that, on September 7 at the Philadelphia Irish Center, they’ll host a benefit beef and beer with the great local band The Hooligans providing the night’s music.
For more than one of the team members, this is personal.
For Courtney, the story starts with her mother, a nine-year survivor. More recently, friend and Full Frontal Folk band mate Jen Schonwald also was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“She was diagnosed at age 36,” Courtney says. “I thought to myself: I can watch her kids for her, I can bring her food. But in February, I said to her, ‘I m gonna walk this walk for you.’ She said screw it, ‘I’m gonna do it with you.’ We now have a team of 14.”
Three of the walkers—Anne, Courtney and Rosaleen—are members of the Philadelphia Ceili Group. But since they’re all members of BallyPhilly—an online community that embraces Irish folks from many walks of life, representing interests as diverse as Gaelic athletics, set dance, county associations, firefighting and law enforcement, Irish language and just plain freeform Irish pub crawling—the local breast cancer team thought that a benefit might also be a good way to bring this vibrant online village together for real, and in common cause.
“We’re really hoping to bring out, not only our own friends, but to get the word out to the greater Irish community,” says Anne. “It’s also a great opportunity to have a great afternoon with a great band.
“We were lucky enough to speak with (local musician) Fintan Malone about the bands he represents. One of those bands is The Hooligans. We asked whether they’d be willing to work with us, and they were very accommodating.”
The benefit should go a long way toward helping the team meet its goal of roughly $35,000. Each team member needs to pledge $2,200. Only a few of them have been able to do so thus far. As a group, they’re about half the way there.
You can help them get the rest of the way, and have a hell of a good time, too.
Once again, the details:
Sunday, September 7.
4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Philadelphia Irish Center/Commodore Barry Club
6815 Emlen St
Philadelphia, PA 19119
Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 at the door.
For advance tickets: www.theirishcenter.com/ceili.php
Or call:
(215) 848-1657
The price of admission gets you food (including vegetarian options), soda, beer and an afternoon and evening of great music. (Might even be some special guests.) There’ll also be a basket of cheer, raffles and other personal fund-raising opportunities.
