7,000 End Polio Vaccinations

Buttsbury RotaKids has won the prestigious Rotary Presidential Citation three years in a row, by achieving seven of the eight challenges, but the eighth task, to support polio eradication, has eluded them.

Every year the Rotary Club of Billericay compiles a special quiz as a fundraiser for End Polio Now, to coincide with GlobalGivings “Giving Tuesday” when a bonus of $750,000 (2024) was available to be shared in proportion to all donations made on that day.  This year, we compiled a special shorter children’s quiz and Buttsbury enthusiastically welcomed it.

In total they sold 33 quizzes raising £165, which with the bonus, less fees, amounted to £194.  All donations by Rotary (which included this £194) bring in a double donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (a special deal recognising Rotary’s role in starting the End Polio world campaign and all it is doing since then).

This is an additional £387 making a total of £581.

This means that Buttsbury children’s efforts in raising money for the Christmas Quiz will have paid for up to 7,327 children to be vaccinated against Polio, equivalent to all the children in over 14 schools the size of Buttsbury Junior School.