Cork Graduate Creates the First National Campaign of its Kind to Help Youth Homelessness 
 Kinsale’s Max Doyle calling on Cork retailers and volunteers to get involved on 29th April
Max Doyle from, Kinsale, Co. Cork, has founded the first campaign of its kind in Ireland to tackle youth homelessness entitled ‘One for Ireland’. Supported by pro-golfer Shane Lowry, The Trinity College graduate has come up with a simple mechanic that will see retailers nationwide ask customers to add €1 to their bill when they pay at the till for youth homelessness. The campaign hopes to raise one million euro for the 1,700 homeless children living in Ireland today, currently there are 200 young homeless people in Cork.
 Max has been involved in other start-ups and recognised by the Web Summit as one of the Top 100 Future Global Leaders in 2014 and Trinity Entrepreneur of the Year 2015. He was also involved in the Kinsale Arts Festival and the “Cork says Yes” in the build-up to the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. This latest venture has seen the 23 year old team up with the Irish Youth Foundation and a group of Trinity graduates who are volunteering their time the campaign.
 
Max is calling on as many shops, retailers, restaurants and coffee shops as possible to facilitate the simple mechanic in their stores on 29th April. He is also looking for volunteers to help make the campaign a success through rallying retailers and encouraging businesses to sign up. Currently 1,400 retailers have signed up including SPAR, Eurospar, Apple Green, Fresh, Mace, XL, Londis and Mace and Starbucks and Max wants to bring this number to 1,800 in order to meet the target. Approximately 3 million transactions take place in Ireland every day so they need to secure a third of all these transactions for the campaign to be a success. The mechanic is simple - retailers will be provided with plastic barcode tags which can be inputted into the store’s epos system to the value of €1. Cashiers will then be instructed to ask every customer “Would you like to give One for Ireland?” and, if the customer says yes, they simply scan the code. Retailers will be able to see how many units of the barcode were ‘sold’ and the store can transfer this back to One for Ireland at the end of the day. Retailers can sign up here www.oneforireland.ie/retailers
Speaking about the initiative Max says, “We wanted to do something to really make a difference to children and young people who are homeless in this country. As students we don’t have a lot of money but we figured what we could give was our time and that’s how One for Ireland was born. The simplicity of the model ensures that it is sustainable because it is affordable. We need to reach a large sum of people in order to achieve our target of one million euro so getting retailers, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. on board is critical to achieving this.
All funds donated in each area will be used to improve the lives homeless children and young people living in that specific area. 100% of the proceeds will be granted to the key agencies working with homeless people to achieve the very best outcomes, e.g.  Focus Ireland, The Simon Community, St Vincent de Paul, The Peter McVerry Trust and Barnardos.  This is the first time that these charities have worked together under one umbrella fundraising campaign and reflects the seriousness of the problem in Ireland today.
Niall McLoughlin, CEO, Irish Youth Foundation added, “For this campaign to work we are calling on as many shops, retailers, restaurants and coffee shops as possible to participate and ask their customers would they like to give ‘One For Ireland’ and add a Euro to their bill. It is accepted now that the need to help young homeless people has reached crisis point. The real heroes of this campaign will be the retailers and those working in shops on 29th April. They are the ones who will really make this campaign a success.” 
If you are a retailer and want to sign up visit www.oneforireland.ie/retailers or call the Irish Youth Foundation or call  + 353 1 676 6535. In addition to donating in-store people can also donate by texting “One” or “1” to 50300. €2 will then be debited from your credit or next bill. One for Ireland will try and break the record for most text donations in a day and make it the biggest 24 hour fundraiser ever in Ireland.