Purple for Polio - Crocus Co(r)ms once year

Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years, and as a founder of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we’ve reduced polio cases by 99.9% since we started vaccinating children in the Philippines in 1979.

Pakistan (20), Afghanistan (2) and Mozambique (7) are the only three countries where polio is still endemic with a total of 29 case of wild polio so far this year compared to 81 (Pakistan) and 53 (Afghanistan) respectively (by October) in 2020.

It is customary in endemic countries to identify children who have received their polio vaccine by staining one of their fingers purple. A key Rotary Programme in this End Polio push to eradicate polio around the world, is Purple4Polio, recognising this staining by planting millions of purple crocus corms.

Raining Crocuses

As part of this effort in the U.K., 4,000 purple crocus corms were bought by us and sown around the Billericay sign on London Road.

A cold afternoon on November 23.  A wet grass field at the “Billericay” sign on London Road.  Rtn. Peter Greene and Julian De’ath hard at work with a turf-cutter ready for planting our 2022-23 crocus corms (all purchased from Rotary Foundation) for Purple for Polio.

November 24 dawned – it was dry!  The sun even came out at times! Eight members of the club – Peter Greene, Peter Strong, president-elect Roger Kettle, treasurer Les Sheppard, secretary Brian Wellman, Malcolm Acors, and Keith and Gillian Wood all gathered at the Billericay sign ready for work.  Even Past-President Ben Clarke arrived with biscuits from Angela to keep us well provisioned.

With the corms and topsoil placed ready, the first turfs were lifted, and members speedily added the crocus corms to the earth below, and then spread them out (shoots upwards) for optimum growth.  Then they added some topsoil; and tamped the turf back down again.  Then on to the next section – cut, lift, plant, spread out, add soil, replace turf and tamp down again.

And so it went on until all the crocuses had been planted.  Expecting a marathon job, we were all delighted that working together we managed to get all 4,000 – yes, 4,000 – corms planted and the grass replaced and stamped down in an hour.  That’s 500 corms by each person in an hour.  Some going!  

Well done All!

It worked out well in the end. Now we cross our fingers and wait for a purple "Spring show.”

Beating The Squirrels

Rotarian Peter Greene, who organised the planting, reports:
“Cutting the grass the day before, as advised by Rtn Rev. Margaret Fowler, certainly sped up the process and made the job easier to manage, so that when the volunteers arrived on the Thursday it was so much simpler and quicker to plant the corms.  We were also advised this was also the best way to avoid the squirrels digging them up for food.“

Special signs were commissioned to record the planting of the crocuses and Rotary’s involvement.