Beavers’ fun way of helping to provide clean water for those in need

MATLOCK Green Beaver Scouts played an hour of sponsored dodgeball to raise an impressive total of £806.51 to support the local Aquabox charity which helps to save lives around the world.

The Beavers’ version of dodgeball is called SpongeBob Squarepants. Scout leader Neil Beeson explained: “One of the leaders shouts ‘who lives in a pineapple under the sea?’, and the Beavers all shout back ‘SpongeBob Squarepants!’, and the game starts. The children gather in a circle, the leaders throw soft balls at them, and when you get hit, you’re out. Last one standing is the winner.”

Aquabox, a volunteer-run charity founded by Wirksworth Rotary Club, is based at the top of Cromford Hill. The volunteer teams assemble robust hand-pumped water filters and send them to disaster zones, conflict zones and refugee camps around the world, so that people living in extreme deprivation can at least have access to clean safe water for drinking, cooking and washing. One Aquabox family filter costs less than £30 and can process up to half a million litres of water in its lifetime – so the Matlock Green Beavers have enabled the charity to provide as much as 13 million litres of safe, clean water.

Aquabox trustee Roz Adamson formally accepted the funds raised, and presented the Beavers with an Aquabox certificate, right.