Jam Then, Cash Now – Sweet Success

Members will recall the campaign run nationally by Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland in 2017, with the support of Wilkins and Sons as part of Purple4Polio.

We joined Rotary clubs in the UK in having a tea party then for the Purple4Polio appeal. Lots of empty jam jars afterwards. What to do? Recycle? Smash?  Or fill with cash to help fight disease?  That, of course, is what we did to support the national campaign to End Polio Now.

Ambitious Promise

This Purple for Polio campaign resonated with the 2017 International Women’s Day objectives:  ‘Be Bold For Change’ which dates back to 1985 and the ambitious promise Rotarians made to the mothers of the world that polio would be eradicated and their children would no longer suffer from the life-threatening disease.

Magnificent Total

Never a club to resist a challenge our club (under 20 members) raised over £500 from filling the emptied pots of “Purple4Polio” jam supplied by Wilkin & Sons Ltd of Tiptree.  (They donated 52,000 specially branded jars of jam to every U.K. Rotarian. 

As we said then, after sending off the money, “there are still some jam jars to come back...”

Unexpected Bonus!

Well come August 2021, three years later, and we were right!

This month we have received back one more of the jam jars, stuffed with a miscellany of Euros and Coins - 160 Euros in notes, 1 Jersey pound note, 7 Euros 20 cents in coins (not exchangeable), £4-50 in sterling silver and copper.

A total of another £125-95, worth £377.85 to End Polio Now with the Bill and Melinda Gates multiplier.