Dublin’s Black Santa appeal sets record with €80,000 collection

The Black Santa sit-out in Dublin’s city centre raised over €80,000 for local charities in the days before Christmas 2022.

It is largest amount ever collected by the appeal which has taken place at St Ann’s on Dawson St for the past 20 years, with a three-year Covid interruption until last month.

It was also a first for Canon Paul Arbuthnot, appointed rector at the parish of St Ann, with St Stephen and St Mark, last summer. He and Church caretaker Fred Deane stood with buckets outside St Ann’s for the best part of a week before Christmas Eve draped in an ankle-length black cloak and dark cassock, Mr Deane wearing a bowler hat.

“We’re like the real Santa – everything we get we give away,” Canon Arbuthnot said, “and it’s grown over the years in that the same lots of people come back year after year.”

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For Canon Arbuthnot “the great thing about this sit-out is it goes to local causes and there’s not one penny taken in administration; whatever goes into the bucket goes straight to the charities.”

The event was also a great way “to make connections with people on the street as they passed by. There was also the opportunity to meet a number of public representatives as they made their way to the Houses of the Oireachtas around the corner. I’m also grateful to the members of the clergy who came in to support me,” he said.

For the first time since 2019 choirs were able to join the team of volunteers at St Ann’s this year too, adding to the festive mood on Dawson Street.

“All of us at St Ann’s are absolutely delighted with this record–breaking total which will be distributed directly to good causes around Dublin. The generosity of the people of Dublin during the course of the sit–out was astonishing and deeply moving,” Canon Arbuthnot said.

“This year the bulk of our giving will be distributed to charities which help alleviate the problem of homelessness in our capital city. As a city centre parish we see on a daily basis this need which requires addressing. The Black Santa Appeal is the first step in responding to it. The total raised is a profound mark of the goodness of the people of Dublin and to those in the parish who volunteered their time and energy to facilitate the appeal,” he added.

The money raised will go to the Salvation Army, Simon Community, Alice Leahy Trust, Protestant Aid, St Vincent de Paul and the Samaritans. Presentation of the cheques to those charities takes place at St Ann’s during Morning Prayer on Sunday February 19th next, at 11am.