A Grand Plan in Action

“In all the years we’ve been doing this,” Diane O’Connor says, “only a handful of families were judged as not being right to take on the responsibility.” Overall, the host families are “simply wonderful people,” she notes.

However, the seat-of-pants, grass-roots funding was leaving the O’Connors wildly overextended. A system had to be instituted to guarantee regular and long-term financing. In 1986, the O’Connors got it into their heads to launch a catalog, Creative Irish Gifts.