Planting Purple at Christ Church Billericay

Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years, and as a founder of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we’ve reduced polio cases by 99.9% since we started vaccinating children in the Philippines in 1979.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio is still endemic but each of them has detected just one case of wild polio so far this year compared to 81 and 53 respectively by October last year. The number of cases this year is the lowest in history, according to W.H.O.

It is customary in endemic countries to identify children who have received their polio vaccine by staining one of their fingers purple.  A key Rotary Program in this End Polio push to eradicate polio around the world is Purple4Polio, recognising this staining by planting millions of purple crocus corms.  As part of this effort in the U.K., 4,000 purple crocus corms were recently sown in the grounds of Christ Church, Perry Street.

A fleet of eleven volunteers from the church, including club member Peter Greene, and Bob Tyrell from the Rotary Club of Billericay Mayflower, gathered to plant the corms, all purchased from Rotary Foundation, to End Polio Now.

Beating The Squirrels

Team leader, club Rotarian Rev. Margaret Fowler, Priest in Charge at Christ Church, reports:
“To speed up the process and make the job easier to manage, we hired a turf cutter to cut the grass, and did this on the day before so that when the volunteers arrived on the Thursday it was a simple matter to lift the turfs and then plant the corms underneath with a mixture of topsoil.  We were advised this was also the best way to avoid the squirrels digging them for food.“

Ed’s note: Sad reminder of purple planting disaster in Lake Meadows Children’s Garden some years ago – we planted, squirrels won!

Margaret added: “it took some effort to get everyone prepared but it worked out well in the end. Now we cross our fingers and wait for a purple Spring show.”

Special signs were commissioned to record the planting of the crocuses and Rotary’s involvement.

Our thanks to Margaret and all the volunteers – a brilliant effort. And some wonderful images of action on the day.