Rotary Club’s six months of helping
OVER the past six months we have donated more than £20,000 to relieve the hardships caused by Covid-19 in our local community.
This was achieved through the hard work of our members on fundraising events.
In July a Golf Day raised £6,000.
Our charity pop-up shop in Woodley Town Centre raised £2,900.The Art Fair at the end of October raised £8,000 for the Royal Berkshire Hospital Staff Wellbeing Centre. This figure was doubled to £16,000 by a subvention from the Greenham Trust.
In our Christmas fundraising this year, Rotarians and Inner Wheel members clocked up 162 hours of Santa and Elf duties and 84 hours of can shaking, raising just under £6,000.
Between 600 and 700 excited children visited Santa’s grotto and in addition to a present he dedicated a tree sapling to every child.
In the spring, Club members will plant the saplings, provided by the Woodland Trust, at the nearby JAC (Just Around the Corner) equestrian therapy centre.
The children will find out when their trees are planted by an e-mail to their parents.
As well as financial help, we firmly believe in the importance of practical help to local people and support centres.
By the end of this month, a group of our members will have spent a total of 170 hours volunteering at a local covid vaccination centre.
In November, Rotarians, Inner Wheel members and 10 volunteers from
Virgin Media carried out pre-winter maintenance and planting of 1,000 purple crocus corms in the grounds of the Camp Mohawk children’s play therapy centre near Wargrave.
This was a good example of Rotary working together with volunteers from other organisations.
Although most of our donations have been aimed at local communities, the plight of people in other parts of the world has not been neglected. £1,000 was donated to Shelterbox, and £540 to Mercy Ships and, of course, we make our regular annual contributions to Foundation and Polio elimination.