The World’s Biggest Blanket is currently touring Ireland growing in size and strength and gathering a nation of signatures before the Grand Finale 14th February St Valentines Day Dublin 2013.

Hundreds of School Children will be invited to carry Ireland’s 500 ft contribution up Grafton Street as we bid a farewell to the Blanket before it makes its epic 15 year journey around the world. 

Over 600 Schools Globally will participate in the project creating the centre piece.

Each School must select and paint one of seven themes: Love-Hope-Change-Kindness-Peace-Happiness-Forgiveness on a 6 metres x 3 metre calico canvass piece.

Every School is requested to help a charity of their choice.

The first completed section will be showcased in Rio de Janeiro Brazil 2016.

The final size of the Blanket stitched together will be 1.5 times the size of Wembley Stadium with an estimated one billion signatures upon conclusion 2027.

Sincere thanks to … Schools … Teamleaders … Artists …. Sponsors … Volunteers … Charities … Designers … Film Crews … Photographers … Media … Security … Police … Ambulance Crews … Councils … Mayors … Accountants … Solicitors … Web Host … Printers … Logistics … Suppliers.

My Sincere thanks to the amazing team behind the scenes : Jolene Jameson, Mitch Dunne, Charlene Bleakley, Michael Brennan and Daithi Ring.

Blessings.

Paul Mack

Following the launch and Success of “The Blanket Earth Project ” by the banks of the river Foyle in Derry City, Northern Ireland Monday 31st October 2011′.

We would like to take this opportunity and thank from the bottom of our hearts all the School Children who dressed up as witches,warlocks,ghouls,vampires and scary monsters that carried the first piece of Blanket into the history books measuring 212 ft x 9 ft at Europe’s Greatest Hallowe’en Festival  to the tens of thousands of spectators.

We would like to thank the School teamleaders and they are Riley Paitry .. Daynal Taggart .. Amy McBride .. Torna Moran .. Orla Porter .. Joban Gill and Rachael O’Brien for organising the event. 

Participating Schools were Thornhill College-Deele College-The Royal & Prior-St Columbus College-Finn Valley College-Scoil Mhuire and Drumragh Intergrated College.

We would also like to thank Mayor Maurice Devenney,Mr James Campbell, Mr Melvin Yanes,Vice Principals Miss Annette McIvor and Miss Siobhan McAteer.

We would like to thank the tens of thousands of people that have signed the Blanket and making this all possible.

BELFAST : Thank you to everyone who signed the Blanket on St Valentines Day at Corn Market in Belfast 14th February 2012′ and the three newspapers for the photos and coverage … Patrice Dougan and Jonahan Porter- The Belfast Telegraph … Hugh Russell-The Irish News and to all the team from- The Daily Mirror … also to volunteers Ella Melech Israel … Samanta Zoeschg Italy and Laure Colleu France for helping out on the day.

Maybe I could write a book someday on my journey to date … its been most interesting to say the least … I still say life is amazing inspite of some setbacks along the way … but thats life isn’t it ?

Its funny whenever I look back on it as my friends thought I was completely crazy at the time giving everything up like my home,business and car to go on a journey helping the homeless and yes I was totally crazy but I just followed my heart and not my head and certainly not the opinions of others who thought they knew better …. four days into my journey and my friends are looking at this crazy Irishman on the six o clock news on television and broadcasted on three radio stations in Sydney and in a national newspaper. They all changed their tune and told me how wonderful I was as my mobile phone never stopped ringing for the next day or two.

Little did I realise at the time what the Big Fella had in store for me.

Cycling Australia was some journey in itself and helping the homeless with the help of mass media and the aussie folk … I felt like a celebrity at times and I found that very tiring to be honest … I really liked cycling the great frontier or some would call it the Outback of Australia as it was very spiritual and very fulfilling lying under the stars most times with all kinds of strange and eerie sounds and gazing up at the shooting stars and thinking to myself how miniscule we humans really are in the vast scale of things.

Reaching Ireland was an eye opener as the economy was booming with the Celtic Tiger Roaring and the greed factor made my head spin, I got the idea to put the worlds biggest blanket together in Derry City after asking the business people to sign a blanket to try and reduce the amount of young people committing suicide in such wonderful times and that baffled me no end, I invited Schools to help out doing a piece of blanket and created this website,registered the project,created teeshirts and postcards,almost got married,signed up a thousand sponsors,did sixty newspapers,appointed thirty two teamleaders,appointed a board of directors and new accountants,bankers,solicitors and cycled the nation before having a nervous breakdown and ending up in hospital.

I continued my journey into parts of Europe and markets started to wobble so I took myself to New Zealand and then down to South America and back through Asia and found myself back once again upon Irish soil to a collapsed economy.

Over the last seven years I have been in hundreds of newspapers including the headlines  …  sometimes for the right reasons and sometimes for not all the right reasons … I met many celebs and the down and outs at times … I have been officially homeless for five years and depended on the generousity of others … sometimes staying in hostels .. Hotels .. friends homes …Tents … Under bridges … Hammocks .. Haysheds … Sleeping on beaches … Under the stars … In trees and Sleeping with the homeless and the list is endless to say the least.

I have managed to help over one hundred charities on my journey and shook the hand of six thousand sponsors to date and sometimes I even dressed up as Santa and thats became a habit in itself as I’ve done it now six times  … deep down there must be a big child in me somewhere … I’ve met the most amazing people around the world and hopefully meet many more.

Inspite of a few hiccups along the way like being robbed,beaten,bashed,strangled,urinatated upon and hospitalised so many times I can still say “Life is truly Amazing” !!!!

An old lady once said to me ”Somebody up there likes you ” and I thought to myself … she could be right !

One single moment can change our life forever. I am living proof of that.

I have been asked many times about how this crazy idea started of travelling around the world and piecing together the world’s largest blanket. To this day I haven’t really told the full story as it always seemed a bit weird and I was afraid people would think I was some kind of crazy man. Today I want to share that story.

In 2000 I went to Australia, to the other side of the world, to recover from alcoholism. I was a hopeless case and couldn’t stop drinking. I settled on the central coast and joined Alcoholics Anonymous and made many new friends. They became my family. My recovery wasn’t easy, however for the first two years it was made easier by the fact that I managed to help many other sufferers of this insidious disease along the way. It helped me to stay sober whenever I brought another sick person into a rehab or detox clinic or even to a hospital for that matter.

I worked my program 24/7. I bought a little cream station wagon and cleaned a few windows and signs in order to get a little pocket money to pay for my rental on a wee caravan with an annex attached. I was very blessed to have my wee caravan. I got sober in one of the most beautiful places in Australia and I could hear the sounds of the ocean most nights as I fell asleep on a futon mattress in the annex.

After two years of recovery I decided to take a journey to Byron Bay. One thing led to another and before long I was working as a mystic on an amazing beach under two palm trees, teaching and healing people from all walks of life. It was an amazing journey in itself and the letters of gratitude kept coming as I spoke about God and my recovery, how beautiful life was and how you should keep reaching for your dreams and stay positive.

I had total peace inside. I could share the wisdom I had gained from my experiences, and meanwhile I myself was being supported by my AA family and continued meetings. I moved around and eventually made my way up north and found myself helping to save a teenage girl who wanted to take her own life. This took me in another direction and left me with a very serious decision to make. Do I stay in Australia illegally to continue my healing work, or do I leave the country and return to the booming Celtic Tiger? My visa was running out and the government wasn’t going to renew it, but I decided to follow my heart. I broke the law and continued on my journey.

People came out of the woodwork.  They just seemed to find me and I ended up in Cairns working with all kinds of people. They said I had a gift, yet I knew deep within me it wasn’t my gift but God’s.

After a few months though, the guilt about over-staying my visa started to get the better of me. Even though I was broke and didn’t want to leave, I decided to return to the Central Coast, sell my car, pack my few things from my caravan and pull out of Australia.

I had just gotten back to the caravan park when the motor of my car blew up. I had nothing to sell for my ticket. I found Don, the owner of the park, had had a stroke and was now in a wheel chair, so I decided to stay on and help him out while I tried to raise some funds for my return to Ireland.

One day I borrowed a bicycle and rode 12 kms over to Erina Fair to see if some old clients wanted their shopfronts cleaned. I attached my bucket, extension rod, and some cleaning cloths to the bike and took off towards Erina. It was a hot and steamy day and I felt like a great fool on a pushbike cycling 12km to drum up work. When I got to Erina I spotted a homeless man sitting on a wall and stopped to talk to him. He reminded me of where I was back in 1999, homeless. I gave him my last five dollars and continued on my way. I spent all day trying to drum up some work but had no success.

Totally deflated, I got on the bike and started my return back to the caravan. I had no food at home and no money in my pocket and a car with a blown up motor. I was furious. In spite of the many people I had coached over the past two years about faith and love and God, here I was forgetting everything. I flew into a rage and started to blame God for the mess I was currently in. I cursed him and was screaming at him non-stop in my mind for most of the way home. I said, “If you’re there and you can hear me, show me a sign or get me out of this mess, for you have all the power and I have nothing.”

Further along, I noticed a scruffy weirdo with long hair and bare feet walking up the hill in the same direction, but I didn’t give him a second thought as I was busy abusing God. In the distance just ahead of the weirdo I noticed what looked like a car seat cover in the middle of the road. If only I had a car. However, I took this as a sign to return to Ireland as soon as possible as it had spots of green on it. I shot passed the weirdo to reach my prize and ditched the bike by the side of the road to claim the car seat cover, only to realise it was just a stupid blanket. I was just about to dump it into the ditch when I noticed the weirdo almost adjacent to me. I started to approach him and as I got closer I started to feel very calm and peaceful. I stood directly in front of him and asked him if he needed a blanket. He looked straight into my eyes with the brightest eyes I have ever seen and in that moment every hair on my body stood up, he opened his palms and all he said was “Bless You”. It felt like time had completely stopped. I was in some sort of shock. After a few moments of just standing there in a daze and no conversation I returned to my bike. I mounted it and turned to wave him good-bye but he was gone.

I don’t know what happened that day on the side of the road but by the next morning I had decided to push-bike around Australia helping the homeless. I started making plans and whenever I told anybody about my plans they said I was mad, I wasn’t mad, I was totally mad. But here I am, six and a half years later, still going around the world, visiting schools, raising awareness, fundraising for charities, and creating the world’s largest blanket.

I remember that single moment that changed my life forever!

Editors : Laine Mullen USA - Ben Whitten NZ.