Harden Primary School Rotakids

Rotakids in the summer term, 2025: 

This year, Miss Humphrey, Year 1 teacher, has enthusiastically taken on the Rotakids leadership in the school. We have 12 Rotakids, 2 from each year group. The two in the previous year 6 (yr. 24-25) have now moved to senior school so we recruited and inducted two new Rotakids from year 1.
We met once a fortnight, usually at 9am on a Tuesday, depending on what else was happening in this very busy school. The Rotakids themselves initiate the ideas for projects. 

BUTTERFLY KIDS IN MALAWI:

They are all very keen to continue the on line relationship with our honorary member, Andrew’s, Butterfly Foundation For Peace We had some great Zoom meetings with Andrew and the leaders of the Butterfly Foundation For Peace. The Harden Primary children had all their questions about life in Malawi answered and then were treated to a live tour of the library, created by the Butterfly kids and stocked with books sent to them by our Rotakids, with others funded by our club. They were reminded that books, shoes and clothes donations were previous projects, successfully accomplished last year. Subsequent on line meetings involved sharing school songs, dancing and music.

 WORLD POLIO DAY:

Their next project was to raise awareness and funds for Rotary on World Polio Day on 24th October 2025 – we registered this project with RIBI .Pictures and report here.

Easter cards and gifts for Ukraine children Feb 2026:

This project was aimed at providing a little joy for 100 children in war-torn Ukraine.
The group  involved the whole school in making Easter cards. A card was added to each of 100 gift bags, which contained 10  Easter eggs each. They then sealed each bag with an Easter sticker. The bags were collected from the school, before the half term holiday, by Rotarian Chris and delivered to RotarianTim (Huddersfield to Ukraine Humanitarian Aid.) Tim took them on his trip, which left UK on 21st Feb 2026. They were received by the Ukrainian children at their Easter time (different from UK Easter.)

In April 2026 the Rotakids received photos and amazing videos of Ukraine children receiving Easter cards and gifts and expressing their thanks.

Rotakids school garden:

The garden has been periodically weeded and refreshed throughout the year, the herbs that are thriving were tended. Those not doing so well replaced with different ones, with the ongoing support of Woodbank Nurseries in the village. 
The Purple for Polio Plus crocus project was re-visited as the bulbs planted in the autumn term began to show above ground in February, a much better display this year. The Rotakids erected the End Polio Now sign amongst the bulbs, to increase public awareness about Rotary’s ongoing commitment.

Hygiene bags for war-torn Ukraine, March, 2026:

The Rotakids held another project supporting Rotarian Tim’s humanitarian trips to Ukraine, once again involving the whole school.
On Friday 13th March, they held a Pyjama day – all the children and staff wore PJ’s to school and, for the privilege of doing so, each brought an item for the hygiene bags distributed in Ukraine. Our club members supported the Rotakids efforts by contributing items not collected by the school.
Rotarian AnnE and Rotarian Mary, a member of Adventurers and very much involved in the sorting and packing for Ukraine, attended the school assembly that day. She gave a great and lively talk, on why and how we support Ukraine in this way, to the whole school and some parents,
The collection was amazing and was delivered to Tim in Huddersfield and from there to Ukraine.

Picured at the top of this page are our Rotakids with some of the items collected.