Christmas 2025 receipts for Rotary charities

£10,000 IN DECEMBER

In December 2025, local people contributed over £10,000 to Currie Balerno Rotary to aid charities and good causes and on behalf of the recipients, we thank the many local people who made this possible.

Donations to the annual Tree of Life appeal exceeded £4000, including sponsorship by our Community Member William Purves. The appeal was primarily for the Doddie Weir Foundation to support research into motor neuron disease and we are delighted to be able to donate over £3000 to the Foundation on behalf of the local community.

We then offered our home-made wooden snowmen and Christmas trees at the farmers’ market and alongside our gift-wrapping at the Gyle. Sales were in excess of £1000.

Our traditional gift-wrapping service involved members, partners, families and friends, together with several volunteers from Edinburgh company Diligenta. Donations at the gift-wrapping totalled well over £3000.

In addition to this, in partnership with the Pentlands Ukrainian Support Group, we were able to donate £1500 to provide Christmas gifts to orphanages in Kiev and Odessa. This was a project undertaken by Gavin Menzies, who has made several visits to Ukraine and whom we supported similarly last year.

But that’s not all:

    we supported pupils of Balerno High School, who undertook a project to deliver donations to the local Community for Food, supporting families of pupils at local schools;

    with donations from our own members, from the local Probus Club, from friends and from our Community Member Circle Security, we were able to deliver 140 Christmas presents to families supported by the Wester Hailes Food Bank, run by the Holy Trinity Church;

    we supported the Ukrainians’ concert in Currie, which we helped to organize;

    we attended the Riding for the Disabled event, celebrating their 40^th anniversary and the official opening of their new arena by HRH The Princess Royal;

    and we relaxed at our own Christmas dinner.

And that was just December.

Currie Balerno Rotary serves the communities of Ratho, Kirknewton, Balerno, Currie, Juniper Green, Baberton, Colinton and Wester Hailes.