Four teams from University College Cork (UCC) have been announced as the winners of Jailbreak 2018, in a first-time tie in the competition, and also the first occasion on which a Trinity team have failed to be crowned champions.
The race began at Dublin Castle yesterday morning. By 2pm today, sixteen teams were en route to “Location X” in Pula, Croatia with teams 13, 74, 103 and 136 all crossing the finish line at 5pm. Twenty teams are expected to reach Pula by this evening.
Jailbreak 2018 is in support of Amnesty’s BRAVE campaign and Trinity College’s conferences of Saint Vincent de Paul. The event is Trinity VDP’s largest fundraiser and allows the society to run over thirty weekly activities for children from underrepresented areas, adults with intellectual disabilities and people experiencing homelessness. Over €54,000 had been raised at the time of publication, with donations still open. The targeted fundraising amount of €50,000 was reached early this afternoon and the organisers have said they are hopeful of surpassing last year’s amount of €57,000 in the next few days. The competition to be crowned “top fundraisers” is ongoing, with two Trinity teams – Teams 31 and 56 – battling it out for first place. Both teams have raised €2,300 to date, with the fundraising race officially closing at 9pm tonight.
Speaking to Trinity News, the directors of Jailbreak 2018, Hugh Fitzgibbon (VDP), Aoife Curtin (Amnesty International) and Rob O’Donnell (Cumann Gaelach), expressed their satisfaction with the level of funds raised so far. Stating that the race came to “a very exciting finish,” the directors emphasised that “the most important thing is that we’ve raised €54,000 for two incredible charities and that number is only going to keep going up. Overall, we are extremely happy with this year’s race, congratulations to all of our teams! Go raibh míle maith agaibh as gach aon duine a thug airgead dúinn!”