When lockdown was announced in March 2020, the team at Leeds Irish Health and Homes knew they needed to act to keep our community in Leeds connected - and that the answer would have to involve technology.

On Saturday 11th June we were at long-last able to celebrate our milestone 25th (+1) anniversary in style when we held our party at Left Bank in Leeds. The event was our way of saying a massive thank you to all those people-service users, staff, volunteers, community members, donors, funders, fundraisers and supporters who have journeyed with us through our first quarter of a century.

LIHH celebrated its 25th year as an organisation in 2021 but unfortunately due to the pandemic we couldn’t mark the occasion in the way we wished.

We're delighted that we were able to host our first Christmas gathering since 2019 yesterday to launch our 25th anniversary festive celebrations. Keeping everyone safe and well was our number one priority. It was such a joy to see everyone out and about and saying how much they'd missed getting together.

On Sunday 5th September, seven valiant LIHH road warriors will be slogging their trainers off to raise funds for our 2021 Christmas Craic Pack project by taking part in the Leeds Half Marathon.

A local business owner approached us as they had been keeping an eye on us through social media and wanted to contribute something to our post-pandemic work.

We are delighted to announce that our luncheon clubs have re-opened from Monday 21st June and will be running on a Monday and Friday respectively.

There are times when someone's dedication and devotion to duty should be recognised. This has been no truer than through this last 16 months.

We were thrilled to recently receive a personal message from President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins to mark our 25th Anniversary celebration and the contribution so many staff and volunteers have made to our community.

We're extremely lucky at LIHH to have so many good people who give freely of their time to help out in various ways to try and bring a smile to people's lips, to engage in cultural dialogue or to be a listening ear when it's needed.

Well, we've made it. Leeds Irish Health and Homes has been providing it's services to our community for 25 years this year.

Keep your eyes out on our website and social media outlets for further information and we hope to see y'all real soon.

During the pandemic we have been lucky enough to continue our work and association with second-generation Irish poet Ian Duhig FRSL who we last worked with on the very well-received and reviewed 'The Trojan Donkey' publication.