OVER 700 secondary school students as well as some volunteers from the public, gathered in the People’s Park yesterday (December 15) for a world record attempt of the longest Christmas cracker chain. The gallant effort was organised by St. Vincent De Paul in a bid to raise funds for education grants and their annual toy appeal.

Debbie O’Halloran, youth development officer with SVP, was running around until the very last minute looking for people to help break the magic number of 749. “It’s been manic! We’ve had a few schools drop out at the last minute so we’ve been relying on some friendly locals to help boost our numbers,” Debbie said. “The money that we are collecting today will be split fifty/fifty between our education grants and our Christmas Toy Appeal and the response so far has been fantastic.”

Just moments ago, word came through that the attempt was successful and thanks to SVP, and 798 volunteers, Waterford now holds the world record for biggest Christmas Cracker chain!