A woman who has raised more than half a million euro for the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) since the first Daffodil Day 37 years ago has said she could not believe she had raised so much for the charity.
Sheila Morris, 76, lost her 19-year-old sister to leukaemia in 1966.
She said: “In 1987, I seen an ad in the Woman’s Way (magazine) and I thought if I could do a little bit there now it might help because of my sister who passed away in 1966 with leukaemia.
“It was a very tough time and it was a time when I saw my father crying.
“The amount we have raised, half a million, surprised me, not to say I was shocked that we raised that much, the generosity is brilliant, but just to hear it from the Cancer Society, I couldn’t believe it.
“I know everybody else, the volunteers, would be so pleased about that and I’m absolutely delighted to hear that from the Cancer Society.”
“Times are hard and that, but it’s unbelievable how much they donate…they probably have been hit by cancer and want to give something back and that’s what a lot of my volunteers say,” she added.
Hundreds of volunteers around the country are taking part in Daffodil Day, with the society aiming to secure more than €6m in donations from their annual fundraiser.
The ICS has said it has seen a 30% increase in demand for its volunteer driver services due to an increase in the cost of living.
It said 42,000 people in Ireland receive a cancer diagnosis every year, while more than 9,000 people die from the disease here every year.
However, there are more people are surviving cancer than ever before due to earlier detection, improved care and targeted treatments with more than 200,000 cancer survivors currently living in Ireland, it said.
When Daffodil Day began just in three in ten Irish people survived a cancer diagnosis, however now six in ten survive with that figure rising to nine in ten in cases of breast, prostate and testicular cancer.
The ICS receives just 5% of its funding with the rest coming from donation from members of the public.
Money raised from Daffodil Day helps to fund transport services, night nursing, a freephone support line and information centres and cancer research and trials.
Some 1,200 volunteer drivers gave 22,000 free lifts to cancer patients in 2023 covering 2.3 million kilometres.
The society also provided 15,000 free counselling sessions to those affected by cancer.
ICS cancer specialist nurses had more than 28,000 conversations last year with people affected by cancer and there were almost 6,900 night nurses provided by the society which it said allows cancer patients to die at home surrounded by their loved ones.
A total of 193 families availed of the ICS Children’s Fund to help with the cost of a childhood cancer diagnosis.
In 2023, the ICS supported more than 180 cancer researchers to work on 100 research projects, across a range of cancers at a cost of €3.7m.
Their Early Detection Roadshows visited 49 locations last year where nurses provided more than 1800 health checks.
