Holly Carpenter and her boyfriend Jamie Hunt have raised over €15,000 for The Marie Keating Foundation.
To honour their fathers, who are both currently battling a cancer, the pair invited the public to join them on March 17 for a 6am “Paddy’s Day Dip”, ahead of the 6:30 sunrise.
The couple asked people to take a dip in a location near them, or join them virtually online.
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The pair have now raised a staggering €15,000 for the important cause.
Speaking exclusively to Goss.ie, the former Miss Ireland previously confessed: “I’m so proud to be doing the event and everything, but it’s difficult to be continuously talking about it in one big burst…”
“But we’ve managed to give it a bit of a positive spin with the fundraiser – it’s kind of made it like all a bit more light-hearted.”
“We kind of realised that we have so many friends far and wide, in Sydney and Amsterdam, and, you know, all over the world and we were like, it’d be amazing to get people involved wherever they are.”
“We were also kind of conscious that if we tried to do it in one location, we have no way of knowing how many people would turn up, so we were like it’d be great to just have loads of different pockets and groups of people around Dublin and the country to do it.”
“The idea for it came from Jamie’s dad’s love of sea swimming, and it’s remarkable that at his age, 89, that he still goes in, he was at one point going into the sea every day.”
“It’s something that’s been so good for his mental health over the years, and then recently he wasn’t able to swim as much when he wasn’t feeling well, but then this week he was in again, I think twice last week, and once this week, so it’s just amazing.”
Speaking about her own father’s diagnosis, she said: “I’m lucky that we have such good communication within the family, and we’ve made sure that Dad knows that he can be really honest with us about he’s how he’s feeling. I would never want him to think that he has to put on a brave face for us.”
“If he’s having a bad day we’re all there for him, and we can talk to him about it and we are the kind of family where we make a lot of jokes, and we all slag each other a lot, so we kind of have that as a coping mechanism.”
“It’s important to keep him upbeat and remind him that he will have bad days but regardless of that, we’re all gonna be here for him even if he’s not in the best form, we’re all just letting him go through it.”
Holly’s dad Karl is currently battling a rare form of blood cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2020.
You can check out our full exclusive interview with Holly here.
