On Thursday's Déise Today, Damien was discussing with Edel Tobin, who is the founder of 'Waterford Walls' which is a street arts festival.
Edel was telling us about the shortage of funding for the project which is threatening it. Edel is asking for help from the Waterford community which she says "Have always been helpful giving us a hand". Edel says that the group are now doing a lot of community fundraising to save the project.
Edel told us about how the festival brings such a "magical" atmosphere around the city and the amount of publicity that it brings to the city. She says that through an independent body, they found that the festival brings in almost 8.5 million in positive publicity to the city.
However, she tells us that the funding for the festival has been reduced and they are going to struggle to bring the festival forward in a positive manner with the amount that is currently presented. She says to run the festival it costs around 85,000 euro. However, through sponsors from the county council and the government, they have around 26,000 euro to spend on the festival.
She is hoping that by going on air and getting some publicity out on the matter that the festival will be able to go on at the current pace. She says that "Waterford people are fantastic, but we are really appealing that we need you to come on board and help us out".
She says that every penny spent will be spent on the festival to bring in some international artists and musicians to bring a party atmosphere to the city.
You can listen to the full interview here!
https://soundcloud.com/wlrfmwaterford/deise-today-22nd-march-edel-tobin-on-waterford-walls?in=wlrfmwaterford/sets/deise-today-2019
You can help Waterford Walls at their website https://waterfordwalls.ie/
Thursday's Déise Today also had a great discussion with the mayor of Waterford Joe Kelly to talk about the recent news of the plans to have a directly appointed mayor for Waterford with a 130,000 euro salary as well.
To listen to that interview click here and to also listen to the full show!
https://soundcloud.com/wlrfmwaterford/deise-today-21st-march-2019?in=wlrfmwaterford/sets/deise-today-2019
