AT 24 years of age, Michael Martin is the youngest winner of a People of the Year award. An Athlone man with Down's Syndrome, he won the award for the "courage and sporting endeavour" in a variety of local fund-raising activities.
A well-known and popular figure in Athlone, he has raised nearly £36,000 for charities such as the Irish Heart Foundation and Daffodil Day. His sponsored cycle for the Mater Hospital's "Help Us Fix It" raised £11,000. More recently, he raised a further £12,000 for the IHF, as well as £5,000 towards heating and rewiring the home of a disabled person.
He raised £4,100 for a "touch and talker" machine for a severely disabled boy, £700 for homeless people, and organised a four-hour line dancing marathon from which the bone marrow fund of St James's Hospital benefited by £800.
A gold medal winner in the European Special Olympics for swimming and gymnastics, Mr Martin swam to raise £1,300 for the Cat-Scan fund of the Portiuncula hospital in Ballinasloe. He has also helped send a busload of pensioners on holiday and regularly helps out on days out for patients from St Bridget's hospital in Ballinasloe.
