This past Friday, 4th July, the Friday Club celebrated its 50th Anniversary. This was a timely celebration, just a week after our commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Brother Kerrigan’s death in Sierra Leone. It was Brother Kerrigan himself, in his time as Headmaster, who instituted the Friday Club – and on Friday we proved that his legacy is alive and well.
The Friday Club is entirely run and led by our Sixth Form, who open Outwood’s doors every Friday evening in term time to local people with physical and learning difficulties. Members have a chance to share in our College community, playing games and socializing with our boys. The Club has been led in recent decades by Mr Dillon, who has given his time weekly to support the work of our lads. Also present on Friday was Mr. Hollyfield, a former teacher at the College, who played that same leading role before his retirement. Along with our many brilliant members, also present were old boys of all generations, new and old, and staff members. It was a truly joyous occasion and a sign, as Mr. Hollyfield rightly pointed out, of how the Charism of Blessed Edmund Rice has been kept alive through the traditions and faith of his successors. In imitation of the loving care he gave to his own disabled daughter Mary, and in the way that he opened the doors of his home to the people of Waterford, St. Anselm’s Friday Club seeks to do much the same in the present time.
God Rest Brother Kerrigan – and here’s to another fifty years!
