It is sad to record the passing this year of Lady Mia O’Donnell, one of the founding trustees of Emmaus Hull & East Riding.
Mia first became involved with Emmaus in 2006 after meeting Queen Camilla, then HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, a long-time Royal Patron of Emmaus UK. Mia subsequently visited Cambridge, the first Emmaus community in the UK, meeting and becoming friends with Selwyn Image who helped to establish Emmaus Cambridge. Mia agreed to support the effort to set up an Emmaus community in Hull and volunteered her husband Chris as well! Mia became a trustee of Emmaus Hull & East Riding in 2007 and remained on our board until 2019.
With her background as an engineer, she came into her own in planning and building the premises for our own residential community. She particularly focused on the companion facilities, where she argued with the architects and builders for larger and better equipped en-suite shower rooms, and the best possible kitchen and laundry equipment – many years of companion use later, one of the Miele washers she insisted on is still running today! She also chose all the paint colours, decor and initial furnishings throughout the building.
A proud moment
When our community officially opened in 2016, Mia was delighted to spend time with companions, talking with them about their experiences and challenges and helping in many ways to support them on their journey away from homelessness. In 2017, Mia met our Royal Patron again and persuaded her to visit our Hull community. The visit was a great success, with Camilla drinking tea with companions in our brand-new, purpose-built residential community home.
In later years Mia’s illness prevented her from spending as much time as she would have liked with companions and using her special interpersonal skills to help people feel better about themselves and look more positively at their way forward. In recognition of her outstanding contribution to Emmaus, Mia received an Emmaus UK Founders’ Medal in 2022.
Lady Mia will be missed by everyone at our community, as a presence and a personality. We hope that those who sit on the recently commissioned memorial bench overlooking the rose garden will take some of her positive energy with them into the future.
Lady Mia O’Donnell, 1948 – 2024