Lift Up The Litter

Rotary Day of Service is a multi-district initiative where 800 Rotary Clubs and 30,000 Rotarians across 10 states and 5 countries unite to volunteer in their communities on or near Saturday, 18 May 2024. This record-breaking event aims to host service projects simultaneously, creating a powerful impact.

Why Participate?

DG David Willis says “Our District 1240 is aiming for 100% participation from every club in the District!  Every club’s participation is crucial to the success of this event.  The vision is to showcase the power of Rotary to our friends and neighbours while making a huge impact on our communities.” 

“With your club’s help we can make Rotary Day of Service 2024 a tremendous success!” was the exhortation. 

We leapt at the challenge and arranged joint “litter-picks” with our two RotaKids clubs at Quilters and Buttsbury Junior Schools, Buttsbury on May 23, and Quilters after half term in early June.

Thursday May 23 saw five members of our club assemble at Buttsbury Junior School for a joint Litter Pick.  
Greeted by Deputy Head Master Adam Graves, President Roger, Michael Ginn, Les, Keith and Peter Greene, were introduced to 15 young pupils from Buttsbury Junior and Infant schools - years 2 and 5.  Donning their RotaKids tabards and armed with “grabbers” they were split into five teams, each with a Rotarian with his own “grabber”, and dispersed around the grounds.  Two teams to different ends of the field, one team to the entrance drive, one to the back gate and one beside the playground.

Into the Hedges

Eager is an understatement, all the children were totally enthusiastic in their zeal to find and pick up rubbish, litter and detritus - even clambering into the hedges of the field to make sure nothing was missed.

Thankfully the children’s eyesight was much better than ours, and although there was less litter than last time, we found, tissues, cardboard, empty crisp packets, plastic, paper, even a Dr. Pepper bottle and a tennis ball!  The teams made light work of the job and all too soon, five bags were full of litter, were disposed of, and the litter pickers and tabards were collected in. 

Event over? No!  We all repaired to the staff room where the children served us tea, coffee, and cake.
Their discipline, their behaviour, and the way they helped each other was most inspiring.

So Impressed!

Deputy Head Adam Graves complimented the children on their endeavours and the Rotary Club for giving up our time to help out. “Thank you for the Rotary clubs support,” he said.  “Although there was less litter than before, it was a successful event and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.”

Peter Greene commented for our club “Thank you very much for today, we thoroughly enjoyed it and I think the children did too.  We are all so impressed by their excellent behaviour, enthusiasm and they way they conducted themselves, and all applied themselves to seeking out and picking up litter.  So very enthusiastic!”

Well done Buttsbury! Thank you for letting us help you on this Rotary Day of Service.