CROCUS PLANTING IN TOTTON AND LYNDHURST '20

Working in shifts, members of  New Forest Rotary Club planted thousand of purple crocus corms in Totton, outside and also opposite the Police Station near the entrance to The Precinct. Planted in October 2020 they became a magnificent display in the early Spring. The purple signified the  purple dye painted on the little finger of children as they are immunuised against polio.
At the same time, October 2020, beside the entrance to the Lyndhurst Community Centre, 1500 bulbs were planted by Steve and Rosemary Timms and John and Christine Brown. They looked wonderful in late February as they opened.

The Purple4Polio initiative is one launched by Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland to raise funds and awareness for our efforts to eradicate polio across the world and promote the work of our global campaign - End Polio Now

When a child receives their life saving polio drops on mass polio immunisation days in many countries their little finger is painted with a purple dye so it is clear they have received their life saving vaccine.

Rotary’s pledge for a polio free world was made in 1985 when there were 125 polio endemic countries and hundreds of new cases every single day. In 2017 there were only 22 cases in the entire world but as long as there is one single case anywhere children everywhere are at risk.

Thanks to Rotary, and the support of our partners WHO, Unicef, CDC and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,  continued campaigning, health worker training and vaccination programmes are essential to stop the disease returning and ensuring the world is certified polio-free. Over 400 million children still have to receive their polio vaccinations by the GPEI partners multiple times every single year in more than 50 countries. See: https://www.rotarygbi.org/our-causes/end-polio-now/