Rotary Club of Bedford Castle

Thanks For Life - End Polio Now

The Rotary Club of Bedford Castle held awareness days on Tuesday 23rd and Saturday 27th February 2010 at local Tesco and Sainsbury stores.

The initiative is part of Rotary’s national Thanks for Life campaign, that will see hundreds of Rotary clubs across Great Britain and Ireland linking up with schools, businesses, organisations and individuals to hold a range of fund-raising events to raise the £1 million target by Thanks For Life – Rotary Day, Tuesday, February 23, 2010 (Rotary’s 105th birthday).

Leigh Brewin, Rotary Club of Bedford Castle President said: “We are so close to stamping out polio and we hope this fun event will encourage more people to get behind the initiative. It is vital that we eradicate it from the four remaining endemic countries or the likelihood is that the disease will spread again to the countries which have been cleared. With the public’s we can destroy polio.”

“Rotary has been involved in this fight for 25 years and the world is so close to being free from polio for good thanks to the joint hard work of organisations and governments. How fantastic for a town, individual, business or organisation to join the fight and be able to say, ‘I helped to wipe out a disease for only the second time in history, after smallpox. I stopped children from dying - I help change the world’.”

Rotary is delighted that the supermarket Tesco is throwing open doors at stores across Great Britain and Ireland to allow Rotary clubs to collect donations from shoppers on Saturday 27th February. Customers can also find out about Rotary’s promise to eradicate polio as well as how to become a member of the world’s largest humanitarian organisation.

Sainsbury stores are also hosting Rotary clubs in various areas, including Bedford.

Polio is a crippling, and sometimes fatal, disease and still a very harrowing reality for children in parts of Africa and Asia and threatens children everywhere. It is highly virulent and only an air flight away from the UK.

Every £1 raised in this campaign will purchase five doses of the special anti-polio vaccine. These children will be protected against polio - forever.

For more information please visit www.ribi.org/thanks-for-life