Crocus planting

Spades at the Ready!

A stalwart party of Knaresborough Rotarians were out on 10^th October 2024, at Linden Homes near Aldi planting hundreds of purple crocuses to promote awareness of Rotary’s worldwide campaign to eradicate Polio. 

Rotary plants purple crocuses as the purple resembles the purple dye used on children's fingers to show children have received the vaccine. In 1985, Rotary pledged to rid the world of polio. Rotary spearheaded the campaign at a time when there were over 1,000 polio cases a day in 125 countries. Today, the number of cases is down by 99.99% and only two countries have endemic Polio, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rotary's efforts over the years that have seen 2.5 billion children immunised against the virus in 122 countries. It costs just 20p for each vaccine. Rotary has donated $2.1 billion to the project. Rotary’s aim is to make polio only the second disease eradicated by vaccination and public health measures since smallpox.  Crocus planting took place in Burton Leonard on Wednesday 16^th, and will happen at Staveley on Thursday 24^th  October, World Polio Day, when Knaresborough Castle will be floodlit in Purple for Polio.